8, May 2017
UN says 4,600 people flee homes in DR Congo daily 0
An average of 4,600 people flee their homes every day in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN says, warning of a dramatically deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country. A full 3.7 million people were displaced within DR Congo by the end of March – more than double the 1.6 million at the start of 2016, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said. “This is a massive, massive deterioration,” Rein Paulsen, who heads OCHA’s country office in DR Congo, told reporters in Geneva.
The situation is particularly dire in the central Kasai region, where spiraling violence between government troops and tribal militias has forced 1.27 million people from their homes since last September, he said. “That’s an increase of 100,000 in the last week,” Paulsen said, describing the numbers as “shocking and dramatic.”
The fighting in Kasai erupted after government troops last August killed tribal chief Jean Pierre Mpandi, also known as Kamwina Nsapu, who had launched an uprising against President Joseph Kabila. Violence in the region has left at least 400 people dead since September. The UN has meanwhile reported finding 40 mass graves, while two UN researchers – Michael Sharp, an American, and Zaida Catalan, a dual Swedish-Chilean national – investigating the violence were abducted and shot dead. One of the victims was also beheaded.
Source: AFP
9, May 2017
Buea: Francophone Governor makes a mockery of South West Chiefs 0
The Francophone governor of the Buea province of Southern Cameroons, Bernard Okalia Bilai has attacked the traditional institutions of the South West people. The Biya appointee during a meeting with the visiting Francophone Minister of Secondary Education in Buea observed that traditional rulers in the region are fond of intimidating administrators with masquerades from sacred society groups but cannot use them to fight against insecurity prevailing in the region.
Governor Bernard Okalia and the the Minster of Secondary education reportedly embarked on a working visit in the region to evaluate what the Yaounde regime painted as the level of preparedness of the Cameroon GCE Board to organize the 2017 session of the examinations. Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe began his mission in the South west region and is expected to brave the bad roads to Bamenda.
The minister held a scantily attended meeting at the Mountain Hotel in Buea in which each principal of the different secondary schools gave a comprehensive report on school effectiveness. The Principal of Bilingual Grammar School, BGS Molyko, Hannah Mbua Etonde was frank, candid and thoughtful when she told the Minister that most students have not been coming to school.
However ghost town welcomed Minister Ngale Bibehe in Buea with several shops remaining permanently closed in Molyko, Mile 17 and other areas. The Biya Francophone regime has insisted that the GCE practical examinations will begin next Monday May 15, 2017 while the written part shall commence on June 5, 2017.
By Rita Akana with files from Cameroun Info.Net