Officials in Cameroon say Boko Haram militants appear to be changing their tactics and attacking only military and government targets in an effort to try to attract more recruits.

This week, Cameroonian Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo a military hospital in Maroua about 80 kilometers from Nigeria’s Borno state, where 14 government troops and four civilians are recovering after Boko Haram attacks over five days on the northern border with Nigeria.

Assomo said Cameroonians and President Paul Biya share the grief of family members of 14 soldiers killed by the jihadists.

Among the wounded soldiers is 37-year-old Lieutenant Innocent Beti who was shot in his abdomen when Boko Haram attacked the village of Sagme. He said if he recovers and is given another chance, he will not hesitate to fight the terrorists.

Cameroon’s military said it has recorded at least seven Boko Haram incursions on its territory during July. The Boko Haram forces targeted military positions and public buildings in the border towns of Mozogo, Fotokol, Amchide and Achigachia.

Assomo said the deadliest attacks were in the villages of Sagme and Zigi.

The defense minister says unlike previous years, the terrorist group has avoided attacks on civilians, markets, religious institutions and schools.

He said the military should immediately examine and adequately respond to the new wave of threats posed by Boko Haram.

Assomo said more troops have been deployed to the border area, but did not say how many. He asked civilians to help the military by reporting strangers in their towns and villages, and by creating their own militias.

Saibou Issa, a conflict resolution specialist at the University of Maroua, believes Boko Haram is trying to gain the trust of civilians.

He said the new wave of attacks indicates Boko Haram fighters now share the ideology of the jihadist splinter Islamic State West Africa Province, which appears to be gaining control over Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad border localities. Issa said that group attacks military positions and government officials to gain sympathy and recruit civilians.

Issa also said poverty in the Lake Chad Basin is pushing many young men to join the terror group, where they expect to be paid for killing government troops. He said it’s possible that former fighters who were unhappy that Boko Haram attacked civilians may now rejoin the group.

Cameroon is pleading with its citizens not to join the jihadist group, which the government says only brings pain and sufferings. Boko Haram violence that started 12 years ago has cost the lives of 30,000 people and displaced about 2 million in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

Several Cameroon government army soldiers have been killed recently in Southern Cameroons and the sad reality is reportedly creating tension within the military hierarchy in Yaoundé.

Senior intelligence officers of the Cameroon government army have accused General Valere Nka the head of the military operations in Southern Cameroons of systematically manipulating operational intelligence reports following directives from some politicians who are benefitting from the war.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the situation in Southern Cameroons is deteriorating at catastrophic rapidity and all the more serious because several army officers are now saying that the number of soldiers who died ever since the 88-year-old President Biya declared war against British Southern Cameroonians is much higher than those published officially. A source deep within the Francophone dominated army was quoted as saying that the practice of manipulating the military death toll was adopted by the ruling CPDM crime syndicate in order not to demoralize the troops.

In addition to this developing scandal, there is also the matter of choice of army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons.  The Francophone Beti Ewondo military hierarchy is accused of protecting their blood relations preventing them from being sent to Southern Cameroons while other ethnic minorities within the Cameroon government army are deployed regularly with some having spent two years on the Ambazonian front line.

In order to calm the tension on the ground, General Nka Valere has been urgently summoned to the Ministry of Defense to explain himself to Defense Minister Beti Assomo.

Hundreds of Cameroon government soldiers are defecting

The fighting in recent weeks has caused huge casualties on both sides and the losses in the ranks of the Cameroon government army are beginning to have a negative impact on the troops with hundreds of defections now being recorded.

 A video posted on social media by a group of Cameroon government soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons gave the world an insight into the difficult situation confronting the troops. The soldiers were heard denouncing their comrades who have deserted the army and even opening accusing senior officers of corruption.

By Fon Lawrence

A peace conference dubbed National Women’s Convention for Peace grouping over 1,000 women from Cameroon’s 10 regions opened in the capital, Yaounde on Thursday amid rising security challenges in the Central African country.

The three-day conference, the first of its kind, was organized by grassroots leaders in collaboration with the German-based organization Friedrich Ebert Foundation. It targets essentially women peace activists, displaced women and girls, victims of war-related violence, female traditional and religious leaders, female soldiers and women from civil society and political parties.

“Women have a very important role to play toward achieving a sustainable future and peaceful societies. The majority of women have continued to be neglected during sustainable discussions and meaningful peace-building processes,” organizers said in a statement.

The conference will send a strong collective signal that Cameroonian women are longing for peace, it said.

The conference comes in the wake of recurrent attacks by terror group Boko Haram in the country’s Far North region and separatist raids in the English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest.

At the end of the conference, the women will make a historic declaration for peace in the country and this will go further to create space for women in peace-building processes, organizers said.

Source: Xinhuanet

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday its board had approved a three-year financing deal for Cameroon worth $689.5 million to help the Central African nation’s economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and to support promised reforms.

The arrangement allows for the immediate disbursement of the equivalent of $177.2 million for budget support, the Fund said in a statement.

“Cameroon faces significant development challenges heightened by the pandemic. An upsurge in COVID-19 cases since January 2021, has raised concerns about growth prospects,” it said. “Steadfast commitment to strengthen transparency and good governance and reduce corruption risks will be crucial.”

The coronavirus crisis and trade shocks from a sharp fall in oil prices led Cameroon’s economy to contract 1.5%, according to IMF estimates.

A gradual recovery could see the economy posting growth of 3.6% in 2021 and 4.6% in 2022, the Fund said.

Source: Reuters

Cameroon’s government has sent ministers to its northern border with Nigeria to convince villagers who fled Boko Haram militants to return. Cameroon invested $10 million on reconstruction efforts after damage caused by the Islamist terrorist group in some villages. But, in northern Cameroon, many villagers are reluctant to go home, and authorities acknowledge the militants are still a threat.

Bulldozers of Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Works fill destroyed portions of the 30-kilometer road linking Cameroon’s northern town of Mora to Banki, a town in northeast Nigeria.

Celestine Ketcha Courtes, Cameroon’s minister of housing and urban development, and Talba Malla Ibrahim, minister of public contracts, traveled to the site this week.

Courtes said they went to find out the effectiveness of reconstruction work on infrastructure damaged during fighting by Cameroonian troops and Boko Haram combatants.

She said Cameroonian President Paul Biya instructed her and the minister of public contracts to visit markets rebuilt to facilitate the purchase and sale of goats, cattle, table birds and food. She said they also saw roads built to ease travel between Cameroon and Nigeria and to facilitate trade between the two neighbors. She said Cameroon’s government is planning to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by the jihadist militant group Boko Haram.

Cameroon said the $10 million was invested this year for reconstruction of schools, hospitals and markets destroyed by Boko Haram. Alamine Ousman Mey is the minister of economy. He said civilians who fled can return and occupy infrastructure that has been reconstructed.

“It started with the reconstruction be it [of] the police as well as custom administrative facilities [buildings]. It has gone further to train those involved in protecting the population and also the community to be part of the stabilization process. It is about bringing back economic life,” he said.

Mey acknowledged Boko Haram is still a threat. He said civilians should return as the military will protect people to help in the development of their towns and villages.

But this week, Cameroon reported two Boko Haram deadly attacks that claimed the lives of 13 troops and civilians in the border villages of Sagme and Zigi. The latest attack was in Zigi on Tuesday. Authorities say five troops and six civilians were killed.

Cameroon said several hundred civilians fled the two villages.

There has been no comment from Nigeria, but a Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), established by Lake Chad Basin countries to combat Boko Haram, consists of troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Niger and Chad. The troops, which have a base in Mora, are posted along Cameroon’s border with Nigeria. 

Gregory Bonglam is a teacher. He said on Tuesday, he fled Mozogo, a northern administrative unit on the border with Nigeria after yet another Boko Haram attack.

“You never can identify who is Boko Haram and who is not. We were sitting outside and discussing. Little did we know that Boko Haram was around and before we knew it, there were already explosives. Luckily, we were a little far from the incident otherwise we would have been killed. Going back there is really very dangerous,” he said.

Philemon Ndula, conflict resolution specialist with the Cameroon NGO Trauma Center, said Cameroon should ensure there is peace before reconstruction.

“What I will suggest is for the government to talk about recovery. In recovery, there is the physical aspect of building the schools, building the houses, building the hospitals and so on. So that is why I am saying that reconstruction is just a starting point. The psychological aspect is actually the heart of the matter. People can only go out to do their businesses, to go to their farms when they have that minimum security,” said Ndula.

Cameroon says security will improve if civilians collaborate with authorities and report to authorities if they see suspicious activities in towns and villages. The government is also asking for the creation of militias to assist the military fight Boko Haram.

Boko Haram has been fighting for 11 years to create an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria and parts of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin.

The violence has cost the lives of 30,000 people and displaced about 2 million civilians, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

Civilians have borne the brunt of three years of fighting between Cameroonian soldiers and Ambazonia Restoration Forces in British Southern Cameroons, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

The human rights watchdog collected witness accounts and analysed satellite images to assess the fallout from the fighting.

Releasing its report, Amnesty said: “Civilians (bear) the brunt of unlawful killings, kidnappings and widespread destruction of houses and villages.

“Government intervention has been limited, and there has been near-complete silence from the international community,” it added.

Members of the anglophone minority in the country’s westernmost provinces have long complained of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority and 88-year-old President Paul Biya, in power for 38 years.

Their demonstrations devolved into a bloody conflict, and rebels have extended attacks against police and soldiers to civilians.

Separatists accuse members of the Fulani ethnic group of siding with authorities and taking up arms against them.

“All parties to the conflict… have committed human rights violations and abuses, and civilians are caught in the middle,” Amnesty’s Central Africa researcher Fabien Offner said in a press release.

He cited an example in which separatists gunned down two elderly women and one in which Fulani vigilantes burned hundreds of homes and killed four people.

The report describes a surge in violence in February, with the Nwa subdivision on the northwest border with Nigeria targeted in particular.

“At least 4,200 people were displaced from seven villages in Nwa following attacks by Fulani vigilante groups in which at least eight people were killed” between February 22 and 26, it says.

The report cites the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) as saying Fulani herders carried out over a dozen raids on Nwa villages in less than a month.

Amnesty says satellite images from February confirmed the destruction of the villages.

“It is unclear whether Fulani vigilante groups attacked the villages or whether the destruction took place during clashes with armed separatist groups,” it said, however.

Amnesty also said separatists have targeted Mbororo people — a Fulani subgroup — in particular.

In the absence of official figures, Mbororo witness accounts report some 162 deaths, 300 homes burned and 102 kidnappings since 2017.

In the release, Offner pleaded for the government to take action to stop the violence, including accepting a proposed fact-finding mission by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“The Cameroonian authorities must deliver on their responsibility to protect the entire population indiscriminately,” he said.

Reported by AFP with additional editing from Camcordnews