Headline News

4, May 2021

US: Armed man shot after standoff outside CIA headquarters in Virginia ⁰

An armed person was shot by FBI agents Monday after a standoff of several hours at the entry gate to the CIA headquarters, the federal investigation agency said.

The unidentified person was prevented from driving past the initial gate into the CIA’s sprawling wooded compound just outside Washington early Monday afternoon.

Security personnel reportedly tried to negotiate with the person to surrender for several hours.

The FBI said in a statement that the individual “emerged from his vehicle with a weapon and was engaged by law enforcement officers.”

“The subject was wounded and has been transported to a hospital for medical attention.”

Earlier, a CIA spokesperson said they were aware of the situation outside the compound’s secure perimeter, several hundred meters from the agency’s main building.

“Our compound remains secured, and our Security Protective Officers working the incident are the only Agency personnel directly involved,” they said.

Security has grown in recent years at the CIA, which sits in Langley, Virginia just off a busy road.

In 1993, a Pakistani man, Mir Aimal Kansi, shot two agency employees dead and wounded three others as they sat in their cars waiting at a stoplight to enter the compound.

Kansi escaped back to Pakistan and was only found and arrested four years later. He was extradited to the United States, where he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He was executed in 2002.

(AFP)

4, May 2021

Burkina Faso: Dozens killed in suspected jihadist attack in eastern region ⁰

At least 30 people were killed by gunmen in eastern Burkina Faso Monday, according to the government. The attack occurred in Kodyel village in the Komandjari province near the border with Niger, government official Labidi Ouoba told the Associated Press by phone after fleeing the attack.

Jihadists surrounded the village and went house to house setting fire to them and killing people, said Ouoba.

“I ran early because the terrorists usually look for authorities. We all pray that peace comes back now in our country. We are tired,″ he said.

The attack comes exactly one week after two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist were killed and a Burkinabe soldier went missing when their anti-poaching patrol was ambushed by jihadists in the same region. That same day last week, 18 people were killed in Yattakou village in the country’s Sahel region.

Another resident, Mediempo Tandamba, who fled Monday’s attack said approximately 100 Islamic extremists entered the town on motorcycles, tricycles and pick up trucks. Four of his brother’s children were killed.

“We are very afraid here today,” said Tandamba.

Burkina Faso’s ill-equipped army has been struggling to contain the spread of jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State who have killed thousands and displaced more than a million people. Last year the government enlisted the help of volunteer fighters to help the army, but the volunteers have incurred retaliation by the extremists who target them and the communities they help.

The jihadists killed civilians Monday because the village had provided fighters to the volunteer program, said Heni Nsaibia, an analyst with the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

(AFP)

4, May 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Africa’s Forgotten War ⁰

Cameroon is concurrently fighting an internal war commonly known as the Anglophone Crisis.

After World War I the country was divided into 80 percent French and 20 percent British territories. The latter was further separated into Northern and Southern British Cameroons.

In the 1960s, part of the British territory joined Nigeria, and the rest was annexed to French Cameroon. Both territories retained a certain level of autonomy as a federation. In 1972, the federation was dismantled, giving French Cameroon executive power over both English and French regions.

When the current president, Paul Biya entered into power in 1982, he changed the country’s name to La Republique du Cameroun. A progressive erosion of the Anglophone culture began to take place, with English speaking teachers being replaced by Francophones; and French magistrates taking over the English common-law judicial system.

Protests by teachers and lawyers in 2016 turned violent when French military officials were sent in response to the uprisings. A new wave of separatists was formed, declaring independence over the Anglophone side. They refer to this self-declared country as Ambazonia, in reference to the Ambas Bay, a body of water separating the Southern Cameroons region from the republic of Cameroon.

The violence has escalated to the point where civilians often get caught in the cross-fire between military and armed separatists in the country. Villages have been burned, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Many are forced to live in the jungle and seek asylum in neighbouring countries. Others have made it further afield, entering countries like South Africa through the Kruger National park, facing natural predators like lions, leopards and rhinoceros along their journey.

“Humans of the Forgotten War” is an umbrella project created by Reframe House for the Victoria Relief Foundation, that will be released in staggered stages to raise awareness on the current situation on the ground. It makes use of conceptual photography and film to interpret the stories of asylum-seekers, refugees, Internally Displaced People (IDPs), and prisoners of war through artistic means.

Collected here are some of the photographs that feature in the project. These images are part of the “Humans of the Forgotten War: Stories” series, with some of the real names changed for safety purposes.

Cameroon Web 41 - Nkosi and his — “I can’t take my mask off because my family, friends or property can be targeted back home.” This family left Cameroon before the conflict between Francophones and Anglophones erupted. They wish to be able to return to their homeland and take their children, but fear being caught up in the violence. They wear traditional Cameroonian attire set against a South African Shweshwe fabric backdrop, representing the country that they now reside in.HUMANS OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR

Many have been living hiding in the jungle for months. Those who manage to escape to neighboring countries often live in exile. “For the past ten years I haven’t had a home. I’m still under refugee status, which makes it very difficult to do certain things. It’s like you’re in an open prison. You feel that you’re free but you’re not free because you’re limited in so many things,” said Ben, one of those who spoke to Reframe House for the project.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has identified 4.4 million people in need in Cameroon, with 53 percent of those being children. “There is a complete lack of visibility of the crisis,” said Carla Martinez, Head of Office, OCHA Cameroon.

“The underfunded response means that many of our humanitarian partners are having to close down because they don’t have funds to continue,” added Martinez. The loss of resources will translate into a population that continues to live without adequate medical support, education, shelter or food.

Journalists on the ground are often targeted and turned into victims of torture and violence. They operate in fear, often risking their life to get the stories out. Most people in the anglophone region feel caught up between two evils—the separatists who say they’re fighting for independence, and the soldiers who say they’re trying to protect them.

The already complex conflict of the Anglophone Crisis is further compounded with a rather vast number of belief systems at play in the area. There are those who wish for independence and the creation of an Ambazonian nation, others advocate for effective decentralisation, there are federalists who wish for two, four to six, and ten state federation, as well as con-federalist view points.

As a result of the conflict, there are many who have become prisoners of war — such as journalists, separatists and civilians. Conditions in prison are deplorable, with food being used as a means to control inmates.

The following conceptual images were created with South Cameroonian displaced people representing the sentiments and emotions that prisoners in Cameroon have expressed.

They wear animal masks predominantly from Cameroon, alluding to the feeling of despair and abandonment that many of them experience behind bars. Those being photographed need to protect their identity out of fear of being targeted. They wear Ndop cloth, traditional Cameroonian attire which was once exclusively used for nobility, but later popularised in other regions of the country.

Humans of the Forgotten WarHUMANS OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR

For this project, contact with the French military was established, but they refused to comment. The government did not respond.

Culled from Newsweek.com

4, May 2021

COVID-19: Biya regime is performing a mincing dance around the truth ⁰

As the COVID-19 pandemic tore through Western Europe and the USA, many infectious disease experts warned that when the pandemic eventually reached Africa, the consequences would be devastating.

In addition, the experts warned that as many African countries had poor healthcare infrastructure, there would not be enough oxygen ventilators available to those who would need them.

The ‘do-nothing policy’ adopted by many African countries on many issues has been the approach of these countries even as this pandemic spreads across the entire continent.

Such is the case with Cameroon now as workers at two major mortuaries in Yaoundé have told Cameroon Concord News Group that they have never seen so many dead bodies before.

One of the sources who have worked at a morgue for over 30 years said, “the government is playing politics by hiding the devasting effects of COVID-19 pandemic from the public.”

He added that “what is annoying to us is the climate that we are working in, many COVID-19-related are not recorded due to the government’s obsession with keeping the official death toll low”.

At another mortuary, an insider said, “We are expected to wash corpses of people who died of COVID-19 without the appropriate protective equipment. Our lives and those of our families are at risk. When we ask for proper protective gear, we are blackmailed as being unpatriotic and ungrateful.”

“The pandemic is going through Cameroon like a hot knife through butter. In a country where superstition, illiteracy and poverty provide a deadly cocktail, the population is still not adhering to the guidelines outlined by the WHO,” he said.

In dealing with the pandemic, Cameroonian authorities are woefully out of their depth,” he added.

Like many things in the country, the authorities are now hoping for divine intervention. At the General Hospital in Douala, an overwhelmed doctor said that “this is simply appalling. Our government is committing genocide by neglect. People are partying, and no one is wearing a mask. When you break the sad news that people are dying or died of COVID-19, their families say you are lying as they insist that they died of witchcraft. It’s a pity.”

With the second wave of the virus rolling many people into an early grave in Cameroon, the government must start taking real and appropriate measures that would help stem the tide of death that is destroying lives across the country.

The government must stop performing its mincing dance around the truth. The virus is decimating communities in urban areas. Lawyers, law-makers, magistrates and other professionals are all being rolled into an early grave by a virus that is no respecter of persons.

By Asu Vera Eyere

3, May 2021

Calabar: Over 200 Southern Cameroons refugees receive vocational skills ⁰

About 200 refugees living in Cross River have been trained on various vocational skills by the Community Refugee Relief Initiative, CRRI in Calabar, Ogoja, and Ikom.

Vanguard learned that they were trained by different professionals on various skills including ICT, aluminum work, tailoring and fashion design, pastries, and cake making amongst others.

Speaking during the graduation ceremony at the weekend at the ICT career empowerment centre in Agagom, Ogoja, the Chairman, Board of Directors, CRRI, Dr. Celestine Atangcho stated that the crisis will surely come to an end and people will go back home, but the essence of empowering them through various skills acquisition programs was to ensure they can take care of themselves independently.

He said the various training was to equip them with the skills that can help them feed their families before and after the crisis.

According to Atangcho, there were a lot of bright and industrious young people who were just languishing at various locations because they left their comfort zones and businesses abruptly and cannot continue their former trade here in Nigeria.

There are many of the Cameroonians who were gainfully employed or working for themselves before the crisis started about 5 years ago, many of such persons may not have the opportunity to go back to the same business again while some would.

” But in the interim, we feel it is pertinent for them to gain knowledge in other files which will become useful to them both here in Nigeria and also when they get home after the crisis.

“A lot of these refugees have been involved in livelihood programmes. Today, some students, trainees who have completed their livelihood programmes have graduated and we will support them in the little way we can.

” So on a brighter side, we’re hopeful that with the skills that they’ve acquired, they’ll be able to fend for themselves, feed themselves, feed their families and we’re hoping that we will continue with that kind of empowerment programmes.

” So that is one area that we’re very happy that it’s happening today with these trainees graduating from Calabar, Ikom, Ogoja and hopefully in a few months to come, we’re going to go to Taraba to do the same exercise there.

“One year ago, I was talking to you, we were launching the center, and today, we’re happy to know that a few refugees have gone through that training and their lives, hopefully, will never be the same.

“We are trying to open up some workshop so that they will go in and get busy and hopefully attract some revenue to sustain themselves and hopefully that workshop will serve as a future training ground for more refugees so that is the plan going forward. We’re just praying that we have the resources to follow through.

Speaking earlier in Calabar, Administrative Assistant of CRRI in Nigeria, Mr. Allan Agbor said the training was a continuous process as various trainees come in batches and different phases too with ICT, barbing, Aluminum works, catering, pastry, and cake baking amongst others.

“We are here today at the Calabar office at Caritas to graduate the students that we’ve trained in various vocational areas here in Calabar precisely tailoring, hairdressing, barbing and some persons are still continuing their training.

Agbor said:” Over 180 persons took part in various training from different fields, we have 38 persons from the fields of tailoring, hairdressing,

“Over 156 persons in ICT, Furniture, and glassworks here in Calabar, as well as motor mechanics and they, would be put into workshops fully equipped workshops sponsored by CRRI where they will practice as business persons operating the place and they will also be like coaches to train subsequent batches of trainees.

“Also, we have a monitoring team to take make sure they become resourceful, besides the coordinator for CRRI here in Calabar, we have selected persons who go round to ensure they are useful and effective at their job.

For his part, Mr. Ojong Samuel who spoke on behalf of the refugees, lauded CRRI for their magnanimity describing the training as a life transforming experience.

” We are very excited and elated about this huge gesture by CRRI, it’s not an everyday thing, and we don’t take it for granted, we really want to commend the entire CRRI team , especially Dr. Celestine Atangcho for his big heart .

” As for me, I used to be a driver while in Cameroon, but I can no longer do that here with ease unless I have my own vehicle, but with my training in glass and Aluminum works, I can train my six children and pay my bills,” he said.

Vanguard News Nigeria

3, May 2021

WHO chief Tedros plans to seek second term: report ⁰

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — who has become the face of the agency’s battle against the pandemic — will run for a second term, Stat News reported Monday.

The 56-year-old former Ethiopian health minister and minister of foreign affairs has not said publicly whether or not he plans to seek another term.

But an unnamed source close to Tedros told the US health news site that the director-general intends to stand for re-election when his term expires next year.

When contacted by AFP, the WHO did not say whether Tedros would indeed run for a second term, only that the nomination period opened last month.

“Member states may nominate candidates between now and September,” the agency said in an email.

“All proposals are sent in sealed envelopes to the Chair of the Executive Board and are strictly confidential until opened in due course,” it added.

Tedros was elected as the head of WHO in 2017, becoming the first African to ever take the helm of the UN health agency.

WHO director-generals may serve a maximum of two five-year terms, and must be elected by WHO member states each time.

Tedros was thrust onto the global stage with a number of high-profile health emergencies — most notably the Covid pandemic, but also several fresh Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in West Africa.

The WHO has found itself at the heart of efforts to coordinate the global pandemic response.

Its handling of the crisis has been widely praised, but has also met harsh criticism from some quarters, and in particular from the administration of former US president Donald Trump.

Trump accused the organisation of being a puppet to China and began withdrawing the United States from the organisation in protest — a decision immediately rescinded by President Joe Biden when he took office in January.

Source: AFP

3, May 2021

US Secretary of State says China acting ‘more aggressively abroad’ ⁰

An increasingly powerful China is challenging the world order, acting “more repressively” and “more aggressively” as it flexes its influence, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview that aired Sunday.

“What we’ve witnessed over the last several years is China acting more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad. That is a fact,” the top American diplomat said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

His comments came after President Joe Biden, in his first address to Congress on Wednesday, underscored that he was not seeking conflict with Beijing.

Biden said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping that in the competition to be the dominant power of the 21st century, “we welcome the competition — and that we are not looking for conflict.”

Blinken said China is “the one country in the world that has the military, economic, diplomatic capacity to undermine or challenge the rules-based order that we care so much about and are determined to defend.

“But I want to be very clear about something… our purpose is not to contain China, to hold it back, to keep it down; it is to uphold this rules-based order that China is posing a challenge to.”

Tensions have risen sharply with China over the past few years as the United States also takes issue with Beijing’s assertive military moves and human rights concerns, including what Washington has described as genocide against the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority.

Source: AFP

3, May 2021

German police bust darknet child porn network ‘with 400,000 members’ ⁰

German police said Monday they had shut down “one of the biggest darknet child pornography platforms in the world” and arrested four of its members in a series of raids in mid-April.

The platform, named as “Boystown”, had existed since 2019, counted over 400,000 members and was “set up for the worldwide exchange of child pornography”, federal police said in a statement.

The darknet forum allowed users to communicate with others and share graphic image and video content which included “serious sexual abuse of toddlers”, the statement said.

Three men between the ages of 40 and 64 were arrested in seven raids in Germany, while a further suspect was detained in Paraguay on the request of German authorities.

The suspect in Paraguay’s Concepcion region, also a German citizen, is to be extradited back to Germany on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by a court in Frankfurt.

Three of the men are accused of having managed the platform as administrators, providing technical support and advice to members on how to avoid being discovered by the authorities, while another was “one of the platform’s most active users”, police said.

Investigators added that the months-long, German-instigated operation had been coordinated by Europol and supported by law enforcement in the Netherlands, Sweden, the United States and Canada.

Both “Boystown” and other chat platforms were taken offline following the raids.

(AFP)

2, May 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yerima registers for Ambazonia’s Interim Government Vote ⁰

Southern Cameroons exiled Vice President Dabney Yerima reportedly signaled his intention to continue in his capacity as deputy to President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and to intensify efforts to defeat Ambazonia’s adversaries and restore calm and security in Southern Cameroons.

Vice President Yerima hinted the Interim Government War Cabinet of his decision to forward his request to the Ambazonia Restoration Council.

Dr Patrick Ayuk, a senior Yerima aide confirmed this and noted that “Just as Vice President Yerima and Southern Cameroons Self Defense Groups have managed to confront French Cameroun occupational forces in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, each and every Southern Cameroonian should rally behind the Interim Government and resist the French Cameroun regime.”

Dabney Yerima was made Vice President after the disgraced Samuel Ikome Sako and Chris Anu siphoned huge amounts of money contributed by Ambazonians to fund the struggle for independence and Yerima has retained the capacity by winning the hearts of the people of Southern Cameroons.

In a telephone conversation with our correspondent in Holland, Comrade Dabney Yerima said that registering for the Ambazonia Interim Government Vote is simply a process to assure Southern Cameroonians that once we get to Buea, the Interim Government will pass legislation enabling the creation of a multi-party political system in the country.

By Isong Asu

2, May 2021

French Cameroun: 7 children injured in Far North Boko Haram attack ⁰

Seven children were injured in a homemade bomb explosion on Friday 30 April 2021, a security source has said.

The explosion occurred in Gouma, a locality in the Makary district of the Logone-et-Chari division in the Far North.

The improvised explosive device was concealed in a bag and was detonated from a distance. Cameroon Concord News gathered that seven children were injured in Friday’s explosion.

Some of the injured were treated and others returned to their families.

The attack has not yet been claimed. But security sources suggest that Boko Haram is behind it.

The governor of the Far North region refused to comment on this latest attack.

Since 2014, the Far North region has been the scene of bloody incursions by Boko Haram fighters.

Cameroonian soldiers serving with the Joint Multinational Force stationed in Wouglo, a locality bordering Nigeria, were also attacked by Boko Haram on 22 April.

The attackers were repelled and the army reportedly suffered no casualties.

By Rita Akana