Headline News

21, September 2022

St Mary Church Crisis: A ransom has been requested for the 9 people kidnapped ⁰

If we speak with the government, the secessionists accuse us of being pro-government; if we talk to the secessionists, the government accuses us of being with the secessionists.

The kidnapping of nine people in the attack on the church of Saint Mary, in the village of Nchang (see Fides, 19/9/2022) has been revealed a kidnapping for ransom. Msgr. Andrew Nkea Fuanya, Archbishop of Bamenda, stated this, affirming that the kidnappers have demanded a ransom. Monsignor Nkea added that there are groups that see the Church as an “easy target to make money”.

We remember that on the night of Friday, September 16, an armed group attacked and set fire to the church of Saint Mary, kidnapping five priests, a nun and three lay people (a catechist, a cook and a young woman) after the ambush.

Since 2016, the northwestern and southwestern regions of Cameroon have been in the grip of a bloody conflict between the English-speaking separatists and the military of the French-speaking majority state.

The violence has claimed more than 6,000 lives and displaced about one million people.

At the beginning of September, Bishop Nkea, who until May was apostolic administrator of the diocese of Mamfe (where the town of Nchang is located) and president of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, called for an intervention by the international community, which “seems having forgotten the English-speaking crisis”. “We try to encourage priests, men and women religious to continue to operate in the two English-speaking regions – he reported in an interview with the French section of Vatican News – but we Bishops receive daily messages that threaten our dialogue efforts: if we speak with the government, the secessionists accuse us of being pro-government; if we talk to the secessionists, the government accuses us of being with the secessionists. It is a delicate situation, but the Bishops must continue to mediate between the parties”.

Culled (Agenzia Fides,

21, September 2022

Cristiano Ronaldo says he has no plans to retire any time soon ⁰

Cristiano Ronaldo has set his sights on reaching Euro 2024 and the Portugal and Manchester United forward says he has no plans to retire any time soon.

“My journey is not over yet, you’re going to have to put up with ‘Cris’ for a while longer,” said Ronaldo on Tuesday, after receiving a trophy at the Portuguese football federation’s (FPF) Quinas de Ouro awards in Lisbon for being the top national team goalscorer of all time.

“I want to be part of the World Cup and the Euros … I feel very motivated. My ambition is great,” the 37-year-old said.

Ronaldo has scored 117 goals in 189 Portugal appearances and is expecting to play in his 10th major international tournament for his country at Qatar 2022.

The forward’s brace against the Republic of Ireland in September 2021 allowed him to overtake Iranian great Ali Daei’s haul of 109 goals as the record international scorer.

Ronaldo eventually stayed at Manchester United this summer despite speculation he would switch clubs, and despite being benched for Premier League matches he scored in the team’s last outing at Moldovan minnows FC Sheriff in the Europa League.

Source: AFP

21, September 2022

Exiled Southern Cameroons leader hails Amba fighters ⁰

With the appointment of General Bouba Dobékréo and the deployment of Cameroon government’s Special Forces, Yaoundé has finally informed the international community that it has miserably failed in its devastating war against British Southern Cameroonians, said the exiled leader of the Ambazonia Interim Government Vice President Dabney Yerima.

“Our so-called French speaking brothers, through scores of military deployments and operations, arbitrary arrests and detentions, rape, murder and arrogance, want to weaken and force the Ambazonian nation to surrender. For five years, they have been trying to sap Ambazonia morale and create a sense of despair and complete defeat among the people of Southern Cameroons,” Dabney Yerima said in an interview with Cameroon Intelligence Report.

Dabney Yerima added, “Now that the Southern Cameroons comedy in Maryland USA has finally come to an end, with the support of the diaspora, the Ambazonia Interim Government will boost Ground Zero willpower, seriousness, and sense of responsibility and the French Cameroun enemy will get more frustrated, Yaoundé will feel heavily feeble, and will be eventually left with no option but to admit defeat and leave our homeland.”

Yerima highlighted that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has put up fierce resistance against La Republique du Cameroun’s criminal acts and cruelty for five years and will continue to resist until independence is gotten.

Yaoundé waged the war on Southern Cameroons in 2016 to continue with the Francophone hegemony and crush the Ambazonia resistance.

The war, however, has stopped well short of all of its goals due to the Southern Cameroons resistance, despite killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and turning the entire British Southern Cameroons territory into the scene of Africa’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“89-year-old Biya and his ruling Francophone CPDM gang, faced with Ambazonian infinite patience, have reached a dead end and suffered a humiliating defeat. Francophones in the Far North, Littoral, North, Central and South and in the West have realized such a fact, and it is now the talk of the town,” Yerima asserted.

“While the French Cameroun criminals backed by Paris have failed to achieve their goals and suffered failures in their bids against Southern Cameroons, the Ambazonian nation has recorded glorious victories. This aggression on Southern Cameroons is already providing a sound reason for the Federal Republic of Ambazonia as a nation to exercise patience and carry on its struggle,” Yerima told Cameroon Intelligence Report.

Elsewhere in the CIR conversation, Vice President Dabney Yerima said the UN and the European Union must take practical steps for peace in a way that would benefit the people of Southern Cameroons. The Ambazonian nation, having endured enormous suffering, deserves all forms of support, Yerima concluded.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

21, September 2022

Burning down of St. Mary’s Catholic Church Nchang: Why such barbarism? ⁰

The news about the burning of a church in Nchang, a town some five kilometers from Mamfe, has depressed many people across the globe. The Southern Cameroons crisis which started some six years ago has nothing to do with religion. Burning churches and kidnapping clergymen speaks of the barbarism which belongs to a different epoch.

The church, especially the Catholic Church, has been pushing for dialogue and negotiations and this act by some irresponsible elements could alienate the Catholic Church which should be a key player in any and every negotiation on the this crisis which has been hijacked by some senseless and irresponsible elements.

From the time the crisis started, many people knew that the real fighters were protective of the population and were better organized to face the government which has been refusing to go to the negotiating table where a genuine and sustainable solution could be found.

In recent times, it has been noticed that some criminals have infiltrated the ranks of the fighters and these irresponsible elements are giving the rebellion a real bad name.

Today, there is more of banditry than fighting in the two English-speaking regions of the country. This has been made more possible by the availability of assault weapons in the country.

Why would any reasonable human being burn a church and kidnap men of God whose role is to sow peace and unity in the country? What has the Catholic Church done for it to become a soft target in a war it knows nothing about?

Today, there are calls from the kidnappers to leaders of the Catholic Church, asking for money. They had initially requested CFAF 50 million, but they seem to be facing huge problems as the Catholic Church is an institution which does not negotiate with criminals and does not pay ransom.

Since the kidnappers are facing challenges, they are now asking for CFAF 25 million, but they will not be having any money from the Catholic Church which is currently looking for money to rehabilitate its schools which have been overwhelmed by wild weeds due to the crisis which has already consumed more than 7,000 lives and destroyed much needed and critical infrastructure.

Those who have kidnapped priests and burned the Nchang Catholic Church has crossed the reddest of all the red lines. The revolution has lost a key ally. Though the Catholic Church is not for any bloodshed, it has however been pushing for a peaceful resolution and this message was reiterated by Archbishop Andrew Nkea in his interview with the BBC.

Though the Archbishop reiterated the church’s willingness to call for peace and to urge both sides to come to the negotiating table, there are fears that the church might no longer be vocal in its condemnation of violence against the civilian population because of this heinous crime committed in Nchang.

Cameroon Concord News Group has dispatched a team to Mamfe to cover this incident and the Group is seeking to get in touch with those who have made this grievous mistake of burning a church and kidnapping the priests. Cameroon Concord News Group holds that those who control the kidnappers should immediately release the Men of God for their place is in the church and not in the bushes.

The church’s role is to preach peace and call for calm and not to negotiate ransoms. Those who have committed this crime have clearly demonstrated that they do not really have any meaningful objective. They are giving the revolution a very bad name, the Cameroon Concord News Group’s Editor-in-chief, Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai, said.

He stressed that it was not yet late for those who are keeping the priests to do the right thing. “We cannot be complaining about violence by the military while other Southern Cameroonians are being kidnapped, tortured, and even killed by fellow Southern Cameroonians just because they have weapons. If this revolution will make sense to anybody, then the kidnappings and requests for ransom must stop. The population has suffered for too long and it is preposterous for any group to continue inflicting more pain on the people. Long periods of ghost town operations have robbed the regions of many economic opportunities and kidnapping for money is sending away any potential businesspeople who may want to give the anemic economy a shot in the arm. This barbarism must stop,” he underscored.

By Dylan Tambe Ashu and Alain Agbor Ebot

21, September 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Children should be able to return to school ⁰

Since 2016, fighting between separatist insurgents and the military has disrupted the education of over 700,000 children in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions. As the school year starts in September, education in the conflict-affected regions is at risk again. The two sides should strive to protect schools from being attacked and keep classrooms open.

At the start of Cameroon’s academic year on 5 September, schools in the two Anglophone regions kept their doors shut to comply with a general strike (locally known as a “ghost town” operation) imposed by separatist militias combating the government in Yaoundé. The following day, only a handful of schools offered classes, primarily in the relatively safe towns of Buea and Limbe.

School’s out

Some separatist groups have ordered public schools in the Anglophone regions to remain closed until at least 1 October. On that day five years ago, separatists proclaimed the independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia, as they call the North West and South West regions. In response to the boycott, government officials said they considered shuttering so-called community schools, which are run by volunteers in separatist-controlled areas.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the fighting between separatist militias and Cameroon’s security forces. The conflict has killed about 6,000 people, displaced more than 500,000 and severely disrupted access to government services in the Anglophone regions. Attempts by Anglophone peace campaigners and foreign facilitators to resolve the conflict peacefully have stalled. Sadly, as Cameroon’s conflict parties repeatedly use access to education to push their political objectives, children are paying a disproportionately high price. The UN estimates that two of every three schools in the North West and South West have closed indefinitely.

The Anglophone crisis began in 2017 when lawyers and teachers staged peaceful protests aimed at preserving the two regions’ distinct legal and educational systems. At the time, unions and civil society organisations called for a school boycott in order to push for negotiations with the government and demand the release of detained Anglophone activists. A heavy-handed army crackdown on protesters calling for the two regions’ secession from Francophone Cameroon then hardened the resolve of many Anglophones, triggering armed rebellion.

Yet, though popular at first, the school boycott quickly lost support as separatist militias began destroying schools and killing teachers who continued working. Tens of thousands of children were denied the chance to go to school for months on end, sometimes years. By 2018, an estimated 4,000 Anglophone schools had shuttered, eventually depriving over 700,000 children of regular classes for almost four academic years.

Some died in the mayhem, too. In October 2020, suspected separatists stormed a private school in the town of Kumba, slaughtering at least seven children and injuring thirteen others. In 2021, separatists killed four students and a French language teacher in Ekondo Titi.

The lack of access to quality education is worsening the already dire socio-economic crisis plaguing the Anglophone regions. Pressure from Anglophone civil society prompted some separatist groups to formally call off the school boycott in 2020, but attacks on schools continue unabated. Overall, the conflict has severely harmed the education system. Schools that are still operational are often damaged or overcrowded. Teachers have fled, without being replaced. Parents who can afford to do so are now sending their children to schools in the Francophone regions.

Disproportionate struggles

The targeting of schools has had a particularly pernicious impact on girls. Parents who have seen their incomes dwindle prefer to send their boys to school, keeping girls at home to help with chores or small trades. Yet others who have fled to Cameroon’s Francophone regions have to fend for themselves, sometimes leaving their daughters out of school and vulnerable to recruitment into sex work.

Despite successful campaigning against the school boycott by Anglophone communities and women groups over the past two years, the latest tug of war over education risks robbing thousands of children of the chance to learn yet again. More critically, it could set the scene for another military escalation by raising tensions ahead of 1 October, when separatist sympathisers typically hold anti-government protests.

Instead of calling for a school boycott or threatening to close voluntary learning centres, Cameroon’s conflict parties should use the start of the school year as an opportunity to mitigate the suffering of children in the Anglophone regions and build trust with local communities. Separatist activists in Cameroon and abroad should unconditionally call off all school boycotts. If they do so, the government in Yaoundé should acknowledge the gesture as a de-escalating measure.

For their part, international partners who are committed to resolving the Anglophone conflict should urgently remind the two sides of their obligations to protect civilians and ensure children’s right to education.

Culled from The Africa Report

20, September 2022

United Nations’ massive annual summit returns in person to a world divided by multiple crises ⁰

The United Nations’ massive annual summit returns in person to a world divided by multiple crises starting with Ukraine. Senegalese President and African Union Chairperson Macky Sall, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the assembly on Tuesday.

After two years of pandemic restrictions and video addresses, the UN General Assembly is again asking leaders to come in person if they wish to speak — with a sole exception made for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But the death of Queen Elizabeth II disrupted the summit anew. President Joe Biden of the United States, by tradition the second speaker on the first day, will instead speak on Wednesday.

The first day will feature French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the two largest economies of the European Union, which has mobilized to impose tough sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This year, Ukraine will be very high on the agenda. It will be unavoidable,” top EU diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters in New York.

“There are many other problems, we know. But the war in Ukraine has been sending shock waves around the world.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock vowed to support countries hardest hit by the fallout from the war as she headed to the General Assembly on Tuesday.

“The brutality of Russia’s war of aggression and its threat to the peace order in Europe have not blinded us to the fact that its dramatic effects are also clearly being felt in many other regions of the world,” Baerbock said.

But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been urging leaders not to forget other priorities such as education, the topic of a special summit on Monday.

“Education is in a deep crisis. Instead of being the great enabler, education is fast becoming the great divide,” Guterres told the summit.

He warned that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on learning, with poor students lacking technology at a particular disadvantage, and conflicts further disrupting schools.

In a report earlier this month, the UN Development Programme said Covid has set back humanity’s progress by five years.

With the Ukraine war leading to a global grain crisis, hunger could be another major issue on the agenda. On Tuesday, more than 200 NGOs called for urgent action from leaders gathered for the General Assembly to “end the spiralling global hunger crisis.”

“Around the world, 50 million people are on the brink of starvation in 45 countries,” they said, adding that as many as 19,700 people are estimated to be dying of hunger every day, which translates to one person every four seconds.

Talks between rivals

Other leaders to speak Tuesday include Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has staked out ground as a broker between Russia and Ukraine, including through a deal to ship out badly needed grain to the world.

Erdogan is also expected to meet in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, a dramatic rebound in relations after the Turkish leader’s strident criticism of the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians.

In the type of last-minute diplomacy common at previous UN sessions, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken convened a first meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia since a flare-up in fighting.

“Strong, sustainable diplomatic engagement is the best path for everyone,” Blinken told them.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was visiting despite a hostile reaction from the United States.

He met Monday with his French counterpart, Catherine Colonna, who urged Russia to allow a security zone outside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose occupation by Moscow has raised mounting concerns.

Also high on the agenda for the UN week will be Iran, whose hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, is traveling to the General Assembly for the first time and will meet Tuesday with French President Emmanuel Macron.

In a US television interview ahead of his arrival, Raisi said that Iran wanted “guarantees” before returning to a nuclear deal that former president Donald Trump trashed in 2018.

“We cannot trust the Americans because of the behavior that we have already seen from them. That is why if there is no guarantee, there is no trust,” he told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” program.

Biden supports a return to the 2015 agreement, under which Iran drastically scaled back nuclear work in return for promises of sanctions relief.

But the Biden administration says it is impossible in the US system to promise what a future president would do.

“There is no better offer for Iran,” Colonna said ahead of the meeting with Macron.

“It’s up to them to make a decision,” she said.

Raisi can expect to be dogged by protests during his visit including by exile groups that have called for his arrest over mass executions of opponents a decade after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Source: AFP

20, September 2022

Irish Football: Under-17s Head Coach Colin O’Brien names squad for Dutch test ⁰

Republic of Ireland Men’s Under-17s Head Coach Colin O’Brien has named a 20-man squad for a double-header of friendlies against The Netherlands this week.

Ireland have travelled to North Brabant and will play The Dutch tomorrow and Friday.

The games will form part of the preparation for the first round of the UEFA European Under-17 Championship qualifiers in Norway next month. Ireland are drawn in Group 10 with Armenia, Belarus and Norway.

Republic of Ireland Men’s Under-17 Squad

Goalkeepers: Joe Collins (Bray Wanderers), Jason Healy (Waterford)

Defenders: Daniel Babb (UCD), Jake Grante (Crystal Palace), Sean Mackey (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Adam O’Halloran (Galway United), Cory O’Sullivan (Shamrock Rovers)

Midfielders: Romeo Akachukwu (Waterford), Anthony Dodd (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Luke Kehir (St. Patrick’s Athletic),Danny McGrath (Bohemians), Gabriel Gartside-Kelly (Manchester City), John O’Sullivan (Shamrock Rovers), Freddie Turley (Shamrock Rovers)

Forwards: Trent Kone-Doherty (Liverpool), Mason Melia (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Nickson Okosun (Bohemians), Ike Orazi (Shamrock Rovers), Naj Razi (Shamrock Rovers), Shaun Wade (Chelsea)

Republic of Ireland Men’s Under-17s Fixtures

Wednesday, September 21 | The Netherlands MU17 v Republic of Ireland MU17, Kranenhof, Velp, The Netherlands, KO 6pm (Irish time)

Friday, September 23 | The Netherlands MU17 v Republic of Ireland MU17, Kranenhof, Velp, The Netherlands, KO 6pm (Irish time)

Culled from the FAI

20, September 2022

World in ‘great peril’, UN chief warns, as leaders gather for UN General Assembly meeting ⁰

Warning that the world is in “great peril”, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged world leaders to tackle conflicts, climate catastrophes, increasing poverty, and inequality, as well as address divisions among major powers.

In speeches and remarks leading up to the start of the leaders’ meeting Tuesday, the top UN official said the planet “is literally on fire” and pointed to the “immense” task of saving it and of dealing with the persisting coronavirus pandemic.

Guterres also referred to “a lack of access to finance for developing countries to recover — a crisis not seen in a generation” that has an adverse impact on education, health, and women’s rights.

His remarks come as leaders are meeting in-person for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guterres also urged world leaders to address divisions among major powers that have widened since Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine in February, which saw Western countries slapping unprecedented sanctions on Moscow.

The raging conflict in Ukraine is expected to top the agenda during the 77th summit of the UN General Assembly, where Guterres will deliver his “state of the world” speech on Tuesday.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said it would be “a sober, substantive and solutions-focused report card” for a world “where geopolitical divides are putting all of us at risk.”

“There will be no sugar-coating in his remarks, but he will outline reasons for hope,” Dujarric told reporters Monday.

Sources

20, September 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Ambazonia Interim Government honours journalist Wazizi ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has paid tribute to journalist Samuel Wazizi who was killed by Francophone army soldiers while in Cameroon government custody in the capital, Yaoundé, on August 17, 2019.

Dabney Yerima and his entire war cabinet praised the sacrifices of Samuel Wazizi and other Southern Cameroons journalists including reporters, cameramen, technicians and other workers in the Anglophone media sector presently in detention centers in French Cameroun.

In a soul-searching speech, Vice President Dabney Yerima told the family and relatives of the late Samuel Wazizi that they should all be proud that their son’s blood is one of the main reasons why Ambazonians were still in the struggle and resisting French Cameroun military occupation.

News anchor and camera operator Samuel Wazizi, whose legal name was Samuel Ajiekha Abuwe, died in government custody in Yaoundé, on August 17, 2019, according to a statement released on June 5, 2020, by the Francophone dominated Cameroonian military.

Despite knowing the dangers of reporting on the war in Southern Cameroons, many Anglophone journalists are risking their lives to report the truth of events. Many have been arrested and detained defending the principles of journalism and showing responsibility in conveying what truly is happening in Ground Zero.

By Isong Asu with files from Chi Prudence Asong

20, September 2022

National mourning ends in Britain after queen’s funeral ⁰

Flags on government buildings returned to full mast and an epic clean-up operation was underway on Tuesday as British public life resumed after the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, although the royal family remains in mourning for another week.

Around a quarter of a million people queued round the clock to view the queen’s coffin as it lay in state in the days leading up to the funeral, the UK government said.

Liz Truss, appointed prime minister by the queen just two days before she died on September 8, flew to the UN General Assembly hours after delivering a biblical reading at the lavish funeral.

En route to New York, Truss praised the “huge outpouring of love and affection” shown towards the late monarch, as well as the “huge amount of warmth towards” her successor, King Charles III.

Charles, 73, and his family will remain in mourning for another seven days.

That means no official engagements after he spent an exhausting week touring his new kingdom and attending to the ornate pageantry of a role that he has spent a lifetime preparing to take on.

The royal Twitter account published a picture of the queen hiking in 1971 at her Scottish retreat of Balmoral, where she died at the age of 96 as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

The photograph was accompanied with the words: “May flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest. In loving memory of Her Majesty The Queen.”

The quotation is from the tragic conclusion of Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” and was said by Charles in his first national broadcast as king the day after his mother passed away.

Dramas old and new

Members of parliament were taking an oath of allegiance to their new sovereign on Tuesday, as political life resumed after 10 days of government mourning.

Following a public holiday for the funeral, business life was also resuming, and workers were busy clearing up the debris left by an estimated million-plus people who lined the streets of London on Monday.

The queen’s coffin was on display from Wednesday to early Monday inside parliament’s cavernous Westminster Hall, and the waiting time for public mourners at one point reached 25 hours.

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan told Sky News her government department was still “crunching the numbers”, but she believed that around 250,000 people had passed through the hall in total.

Donelan said she did not know the final cost of the state funeral at Westminster Abbey, which entailed a vast security operation for hundreds of foreign dignitaries.

But she said the British public would agree that it “was money well spent”.

“You saw so many thousands out there and I don’t think anybody can suggest that our late monarch didn’t deserve that send-off, given the duty and the selfless service that she committed to over 70 years.”

National Grid said there was a drop-off of two gigawatts in usage on Britain’s power network — the equivalent of 200 million lightbulbs being switched off — from 10:30 am to 11:00 am (0930 to 1000 GMT) on Monday.

Disunited kingdom

“This was because people were stopping their usual activities in time for the funeral,” a spokesman told AFP.

Usage picked up again by 500 megawatts during the funeral but dropped off again by the same amount during the two minutes’ silence just before noon.

With the departure of the only monarch most Britons had ever known, attention was turning back to the country’s soaring inflation problem and the crisis stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

There are also deeper fissures over the very future of the United Kingdom, as Scotland’s nationalist government agitates for another referendum on independence, and as Northern Ireland turns majority-Catholic for the first time.

“Is it possible that in the Windsor vault now lies buried the person who, more than any other, served to cohere these islands?” commentator Jonathan Freedland wrote in The Guardian newspaper.

“The last 10 days have been a holiday from the usual political polarisation: admiration for the queen was one of the few things most people could agree on,” he said.

For most UK media, the focus remained on the unquestionable grandeur with which the country and the world bade adieu to Elizabeth.

“An outpouring of love,” the Daily Telegraph headlined, above a picture of Charles draping military colours held in life by his mother over her coffin in Windsor Castle.

Source: AFP