Survivors of slave auctions in Libya have described a “total hell” that they wouldn’t wish on their “worst enemy” as global outrage grows over footage showing refugees being sold off in the war-torn country.

“We were slaves,” said Moussa Sanogo, a refugee who flew back to Ivory Coast from Libya this week after surviving regular beatings and forced labor in the fields.

“For the Arabs (Libyan jailers), black-skinned men are nothing but animals — animals were treated better,” said Sanogo, who spent more than four months in Libya trying to get to Italy by boat.

The North African country has long been a major transit hub for refugees trying to reach Europe.

He was just one of those who returned home with stories similar to those aired last week by US TV network CNN, which showed an apparent slave auction where black men were presented to North African buyers as potential farmhands and sold off for as little as $400 (340 euros).

“It was total hell in Libya,” said Maxime Ndong, one of 250 refugees flown back to Cameroon on Tuesday night.

The Cameroonians flew back to Yaounde on Tuesday aboard a plane charted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as part of a project to return and reintegrate some 850 people.

The United Nations said the slavery auctions should be investigated as possible crimes against humanity, and the issue will be on agenda at an African Union-EU summit on November 29 to 30 in Abidjan.

(Source: AFP)

250 Cameroonian migrants arrived the Yaoundé Nsimalen international airport on Tuesday night from Algeria. Their repatriation was made possible by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM). IOM has also revealed that 1700 Cameroonians have been identified in Libya.

According to the testimonials provided by these many young Cameroonians who had chosen to reach Europe via Niger, Algeria and Libya, they were treated like cattle. Many were for the most part employed in the plantations including the building and construction industry.

The women were forced into prostitution and several cases of pregnancy have been reported among the repatriated girls. Each Cameroonian migrant received 65,000 FCFA (100 Euros).

By Rita Akana, CCN

Robert Mugabe resigned as president of Zimbabwe on Tuesday, parliament speaker Jacob Mudenda announced, bringing the curtain down on a 37-year reign.

Mugabe was swept from power as his  autocratic rule crumbled within days of a military takeover.

“I Robert Gabriel Mugabe in terms of section 96 of the constitution of Zimbabwe hereby formally tender my resignation… with immediate effect,” said speaker Mudenda, reading the letter.

The bombshell news was delivered to a special joint session of parliament.Lawmakers had convened to debate a motion to impeach Mugabe, who has dominated every aspect of Zimbabwean public life since independence in 1980.

It was greeted on the streets of the capital Harare with car horns and wild cheering. Zimbabwe’s Parliament has erupted in cheers as the speaker announces the resignation of President Robert Mugabe.

The speaker stopped impeachment proceedings to say they had received a letter from Mugabe with the resignation “with immediate effect”. It is an extraordinary end for the world’s oldest head of state after 37 years in power.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has been fired as the leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party, less than a week after the military seized power in the African country, party sources say.

According to ZANU-PF sources on Sunday, former vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was sacked by Mugabe this month, has been appointed as new party leader.

The announcement came following an emergency meeting of the ruling party after which one of the delegates told Reuters, “He has been expelled,” adding, “Mnangagwa is our new leader.”

Leader of Zimbabwe war veterans, Mutsvangwa, has also confirmed that ZANU-PF has replaced Mugabe with Mnangagwa as leader.

Mutsvangwa added that ZANU-PF has starting the process to remove Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe.

Source: Presstv

Thousands of Zimbabweans have taken to the streets in the country’s capital of Harare, calling for the resignation of President Robert Mugabe after nearly four decades in power.

An estimated 5,000 elated demonstrators marched through the capital city on Saturday, waving national flags and chanting slogans against the  93-year-old veteran amid nationwide tensions over an effective coup against him.

Organizers of the mass rally said the move was “a show of people’s force” and public defiance against the long-time president and his close allies.

 

“These are tears of joy,” Frank Mutsindikwa, a participant in the anti-Mugabe rally said, holding aloft the Zimbabwean flag. “I’ve been waiting all my life for this day. Free at last. We are free at last.”

Another demonstration is also expected to take place in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, as eight of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF ruling party’s 10 regional branches have called for him to go.

Political tensions emerged in Zimbabwe earlier this month after Mugabe fired Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and accused him of plotting to take power, including through witchcraft.

Mnangagwa, who enjoyed the backing of the military, had previously been considered the most likely to succeed the president if Mugabe resigned or died while in power. His sudden dismissal, however, raised speculations that Mugabe was clearing the way for his wife, Grace, to take the position.

 

The Saturday rally came three days after the army seized power in the country in what was described by the leader of the African Union as a “coup.”

Military forces blocked roads to the main government buildings in the center of Harare and sought to portray it as a “bloodless transition” away from Mugabe, who has been in power for almost four decades, since the former British colony gained independence from the UK in 1980.

Mugabe and his wife have been on the European Union (EU)’s sanctions list along with other key figures in Zimbabwe’s ruling elite, facing travel bans and asset freezes abroad.

The Zimbabwean president has called the sanctions, by the EU and separately by the United States over rights issues “wrong,” blaming them for his government’s failure to pay its workers on time, which led to a crippling strike last year.

Source: Presstv

A fire swept through the main building of French Cameroun’s parliament in Yaounde overnight, causing substantial damage.

State radio and television CRTV said witnesses reported that the blaze was raging on the third and fourth floors of the building.

Firefighters  worked hard to put out the blaze at about midnight yesterday.

Several French Cameroun parliamentarians including House Speaker and administrative authorities helped in the deployment of firefighters to stop the flames, which ravaged four floors of the administrative block of the building.

Pictures posted on social media appeared to show a large part of the building had been damaged. There has so far been no indication of any casualties and the cause of the blaze was not immediately clear.

The United Nations will send an extra contingent of troops to the Central African Republic amid warnings that lack of international support would leave the country at a real risk of ethnic cleansing.

During a Wednesday session of the UN Security Council, member countries unanimously agreed to beef up the UN mission in CAR, which is known as MINUSCA.

The agreement came after negotiations between France, a main foreign power present in CAR, and the US, the biggest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping. That led to a 15-0 vote to extend MINUSCA mandate in Central Africa for one more year and a deployment of 900 extra peacekeeping troops to the country, as requested by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Guterres had previously warned that Central Africa was at the brink of an ethnic cleansing if the UN failed to contribute more.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre hailed the decision and said the US approval of an extended mandate was very crucial.

“The Security Council cannot afford to take the risk of allowing the CAR to relapse into a crisis in which it was mired,” Delattre said, adding, “With our American friends, the more the discussions are based on a pragmatic approach, about life-and-death issues, about effects on the ground, the better.”

France intervened in CAR in 2013 to push back Seleka rebel alliance that had toppled longtime leader Francois Bozize. However, the country has seen widespread violence since then as various groups continue to vie for power across provinces.

MINUSCA’s chief resigned in 2015 in the face of rising allegations of sex abuse against the UN peacekeepers, further complicating the situation of foreign troops in the country.

Source: Presstv

Munyenge youths arrested, brutalised, and labeled as terrorists

The Anglophone population is yet to come to terms with the recent happening in Munyenge, a village in Muyuka County. An unprecedented crackdown on Sunday November 12 2017 by forces of La Republique du Cameroun (LRC), saw the confiscation of several farm tools from the population, and arrest of some people. The crackdown that led to the dead of two people, and several others displaced to cocoa farms, have now had those arrested declared as terrorists.

Speaking to local media one day after the illusive labelling of the people as terrorist and illegal confiscation of their farm tools, many descending voices have lashed at La Republique du Cameroun (LRC) for using Machiavelli tactics in arbitrarily arresting the people of Southern Cameroons. Many are of the opinion that LRC is using all such means to impoverish the people and then use devilish means of bribing their way.

machetes, hoes, cutlasses, knives, etc. seized by LRC forces

“When you take away a farmer’s “man-no-rest”, seize axes & kitchen knives from families; you are suffocating them. Those present farmers can no longer clear their fields, crack open cocoa pods, split firewood, chop up cassava. And some old people can’t now walk without their walking sticks. Kids won’t choose their lands at school,” lamented Ekongwesse Ronald, an inhabitant of Ekona

Others say LRC is committing genocide in Southern Cameroons, yet the world is not saying anything. They accuse LRC of arbitrary arrests and seizures of their only livelihood tools.

“If this is not synonymous to genocide, then what is it? We all know how village people sacrifice to buy a single cutlass, and which they will use for long years. And for those who can afford a new machete, how free are they to do so without being accused of sour sourcing a war weapon? As for hunters, they might never be authorised to replace their dane guns. So their only source of life and proteins for family is over. And no more ‘cha’voooom’ for ancestral ceremonies. Dane guns graciously handed down generations gone! Just like that!” Cried out Eko Mosoke Joseph, a culturist in Buea.

Many say the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), should be petitioned. According to them, MINADER gave these farmers the tools to till the soil and invest in agriculture.

Munyenge youths arrested, brutalised, and labeled as terrorists

“Me sef a tire. If them ask my opinion. I instead think the government should punish the people doing this for

misleading the public. This same farming tools was given to this farmers by the ministry of agriculture. A da cover events wey minister he sef sef hand over such farming tools nor. This thing da begin turn to drama,” lamented Pa Loko Smith.

Meantime, a French daily, Le Jour, carried a story this Tuesday indicating the farm tools the colonial forces seized are weapons. That headline has created so much disgruntlement among journalists of English Expression.

“I am shockkkkkkkkkkkked. That cutlasses (man no rest), kitchen knives, dig axes and other farm tools are seized from the homes of peasants in a locality near Muyuka in the south west region, and a leading French language tabloid (Le Jour) describes all those household items as “weapons”. This hate language, manipulation and cheap propaganda is indeed uncalled for at this moment. At its best, it can only fuel the already escalating crisis in Anglophone Cameroon,” lamented Patrick Mua, a reporter of an English daily, the Guardian Post Newspaper.

Influence-peddling headline on Le Jour

Another opined that the government is using all means to wipe out Anglophones. They say English newspapers should probe in.

“Our Publishers should write on this. How can they seize the tools of farmers, in a region where 80 % of people are farmers? So after killing Marketing Board and Wada in Wum, these fellows have declared war against rudimentary farmers in SW? The struggle has made this government confused. Instead of looking for a way forward they seize farm tools. A blatant expression of frustration to me. Not just agricultural outputs shall be pulled down, but the rubbishing of technical education in Cameroon. Rivers are flowing backwards!” Rawlings Nvem, another reported cried out.

Others say it is of the government’s ploy to use all unorthodox means in killing the people. “This is journalism made simple. For an agrarian population whose farming tools were seized by the military, clearly displayed in pictures to be tagged as stock of war weapons is not just misleading but demurring. Very provocative too. What’s government struggle to defend at this point? The wanton killing of its own citizens?” moaned Larry Essong, a Senior Journalist and Publisher.

From every indication, LRC will use all methods in distracting the people from Southern Cameroons from being steadfast in consolidating their statehood. While they continue to kill, brutalise, arrest and commit all sort of atrocities in our land, the people will never give-up. When they go low, we go high.

Source: Modern Ghana

Zimbabwean military officers have denied rumors of a coup after reports of explosions in the capital Harare. The military made the announcement during a live broadcast early on Wednesday, stressing that President Robert Mugabe was safe.

The announcement comes shortly after three explosions were reported in Harare. The US embassy also released a statement in which it said it will be closed on Wednesday amid what it called ongoing uncertainty. Britain has also advised its citizens residing in the country to avoid leaving their homes.

Zimbabwe was on edge Tuesday as armored personnel carriers were seen outside the capital a day after the army commander threatened to “step in” to calm political tensions over the president’s firing of his deputy. The Associated Press saw three armored personnel carriers with several soldiers in a convoy on a road heading toward an army barracks just outside the capital, Harare.

While it is routine for armored personnel carriers to move along that route, the timing heightened unease in this southern African country that for the first time is seeing an open rift between the military and 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe. The military has been a key pillar of Mugabe’s power since independence from white minority rule in 1980.

Mugabe last week fired Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and accused him of plotting to take power, including through witchcraft. Mnangagwa, who enjoyed the backing of the military and was once seen as a potential successor to Mugabe, fled the country and said he and his family had been threatened.

Over 100 senior officials allegedly supporting him have been listed for disciplinary measures by a faction associated with Mugabe’s wife, Grace Mugabe.

The first lady, whose political profile has risen in the past few years, now appears positioned to replace Mnangagwa at a special conference of the ruling party in December, leading many in Zimbabwe to suspect that she could succeed her husband as president.

On Monday, army commander Constantino Chiwenga issued an unprecedented statement saying purges against senior ruling ZANU-PF party officials linked to the 1970s liberation war should end “forthwith.”

“We must remind those behind the current treacherous shenanigans that when it comes to matters of protecting our revolution, the military will not hesitate to step in,” the army commander said.

Mugabe did not respond to the military statement, and government spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo said only the president could respond. The state-run broadcaster did not report on the statement.

The ruling party’s youth league, aligned to the first lady, on Tuesday criticized the army commander’s statement, saying youth were “ready to die for Mugabe.”

The army spokesman was not immediately available for comment Tuesday. State broadcaster Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was operating as usual and the capital remained calm.

Frustration has been growing in once-prosperous Zimbabwe as the economy collapses under Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state. The country was shaken last year by the biggest anti-government protests in a decade, and Mugabe’s appointment of a minister for cybersecurity last month was criticized by activists as a crackdown on social media users.

Source: Presstv