The cholera outbreak in the South-West region continues to spread. Five health districts are affected with 967 cumulative confirmed cases and 23 deaths as of 31 January

Two attacks on education were reported in the NorthWest, and eight teachers were abducted

More than 3,200 schools remain non-functional in the North-West and South-West because of the ongoing crisis

One attack on healthcare in the North-West resulted in the death of a patient

Situation Overview

The situation in the North-West and South-West regions (NWSW) remains tense with continued violence and targeted attacks. The civilian population, as well as health and education providers, continue to face high risks when accessing facilities or when delivering health care and education services. They are continuously facing threats, direct attacks and armed incursions.

Attacks against school staff and educational premises continued. On 19 January, NSAG fighters intruded into the premises of the Government high school of Weh in Menchum division in the NW and abducted five teachers. The incident caused the closure of other schools in Weh. On 26 January, NSAG fighters abducted three teachers at a Government technical college in Keyon, Oku subdivision in the NW.

Some of the violence against civilians in the Fako division happened during the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament that took place between 9 January and 6 February with some teams based in Buea and playing in Limbe in the South-West.

Non-State armed groups (NSAGs) made public statements vowing to disrupt the competition. The most serious incidents took place in the Bwitingi village and the Molyko neighborhood in Buea, both on 12 January. At least two civilians were killed.

The population continued to bear the brunt of violent incidents either targeted directly or being affected by the consequences of IEDs or crossfire. In January, over 3,269 people were forced to flee their homes to seek shelter and safety in nearby bushes, villages and towns. The most affected divisions include Manyu and Meme in the SW, and Donga-Mantung in the NW. These movements are often temporary and displaced persons usually return to their homes once the security situation allows, especially for those who flee to bushes and nearby villages. Also, partners recorded over 750 returnees from Nigeria to Manyu and Bui divisions. According to the returnees, poor living conditions in their host communities led them to return.

The cholera outbreak, first announced in the Ekondo-Titi health district in October 2021, has continued to spread to five health districts. Over 967 cases with 23 deaths have been reported. The response to the outbreak has been limited due to insecurity and limited and often defective road infrastructure. Areas affected by the cholera outbreak in the Ndian division can only be reached by boat.

Humanitarian actors continued to operate under numerous constraints. Demands for illegal payments by both State and nonState actors, repeated lockdowns announced by NSAGs, diversion of humanitarian aid, and the sustained use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by NSAGs in public spaces and main roads frequently used by humanitarians in both urban and rural areas, made delivery of humanitarian assistance and programming very challenging. Insecurity and bureaucratic impediments continue to be major access constraints for humanitarian organizations in the NWSW. On 8 January, a truck with food assistance on board for beneficiaries in Wum, Menchum division was diverted by an NSAG in Bamenda, NW. Also in Bamenda, on 12 January, a NSAG stole a pickup vehicle of an NGO and abducted its staff member. The abducted NGO staff was released the following day and the car was abandoned in Bamenda two days later. Two staff members of a medical NGO remain in custody and under investigation in relation to an incident at a gendarmerie checkpoint in Nguti, SW, in December. Two other staff members were detained in January and potential charges have not yet been specified.

Culled from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Three United States (U.S.) members of Congress – Ilhan Omar, Karen Bass and Sara Jacobs – have raised an alarm over alleged ongoing campaign of state-sponsored violence and rights violation by Cameroonian security forces in the country’s Anglophone region.

In an oversight letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, the three lawmakers were particularly concerned about whether U.S. security assistance to Cameroonian security agencies might have been used to commit “serious human rights abuses” in the East African country.

In the letter made available to The Nation by diplomatic sources, the lawmakers expressed concerns over U.S. support for the Cameroon’s Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) – some elements of which have been accused by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, as having been directly implicated in atrocities in the Anglophone region.

The American lawmakers’ alarm is coming few hours after Community Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also expressed concern over reported genocide in Southern Cameroon by President Paul Biya’s security forces.

Reacting to a document titled, “Genocide Alert in Ambazonia, Southern Cameroon”, from a group, “United Support for Peace”, Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament, Sidie Mohamed Tunis, said the letter made him deeply concerned about conflicts and the human rights situation in Cameroon’s minority Anglophone region.

But, the American lawmakers’ oversight letter reads: “As you are aware, the State Department has reprogrammed some security assistance since 2019, but our understanding is that other assistance – including to the BIR – continues.

“We also have serious questions about the efficacy of existing laws in preventing U.S. security assistance from reaching human rights violators. In 2020, the State Department Inspector General found that nearly 80% of Leahy vetting requests submitted by Embassy Yaoundé between late 2018 and late 2019 ‘were submitted to Washington too late to allow for sufficient processing time’ and that ‘as a result, Washington had an average of four days to process the requests, instead of the 10 working days stipulated in the Department’s 2017 Leahy Vetting Guide’.”

The lawmakers stated that they shared the President Joe Biden’s administration’s desire to put human rights at the centre of the country’s foreign policy. The lawmakers noted that they also recognised the need for a comprehensive, whole-of-government approach to combating transnational terrorist threats that includes a security component.

“Our concern in Cameroon and elsewhere is with the potential diversion of U.S. security assistance and, more broadly, that support for security forces that commit human rights violations — apart from being incompatible with American values and illegal under U.S. law — is counterproductive to the very aims of counterterrorism,” the oversight letter stated.

The lawmakers quoted a United Nations Development Programme, which found in a 2017 report that 71% people who joined extremist groups in Africa, including Boko Haram, were triggered to join by state violence and human rights violations.

Source: The Nation

Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala claims Cameroon is being “stripped” of its natural resources by corrupt officials.

“Our country is being badly beaten, stripped of its wealth, its dignity, its honor, its human and natural resources, and is in agony, because of the bad governance organized by its own sons and daughters,” the cleric said in a March 2 pastoral letter.

“At the source of most of the ills that are plaguing Cameroon today, is bad governance with the normalization, legalization and even institutionalization of corruption in the management of the country,” the archbishop said.

The prelate said “Irresponsible, selfish, corrupt and unpatriotic kleptocrats parading as leaders” have removed the people and the public welfare from the center of their concerns.

Rather he said, the emphasis is “on the individual, the group, the clan, the ethnic group, the lobby, which sacrifices the majority of the population, thus pushing it inexorably towards impoverishment and misery.”

“Bad governance disrupts political life and hinders the social, economic and even religious growth of our country. It destroys the achievements, compromises the legitimate aspirations of the citizens, and jeopardizes the trust between the people and the rulers,” Kleda said.

“Corruption not only leads to the plundering and wasting of public resources, but also paralyzes the functioning of the state, creates injustice and inequality among the population and plunges the whole society into despair in the face of an uncertain and mortgaged, even bleak, future,” the archbishop continued.

Kleda’s comments come in the wake of a stream of reports that funds meant for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic had been stolen.

Church groups, human rights organizations, and opposition political parties have been pressuring the government to publish its findings after reports that most of the $335 million borrowed from the International Monetary Fund to deal with the pandemic was siphoned off by officials and their cronies.

There have also been news reports of corruption and embezzlement during the construction of the Olembe stadium that hosted some of the matches of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament earlier this year.

“Do we have the right to remain silent? Will our citizen and Christian conscience not place us before the court of history for having been accomplices, direct or indirect, passive or active supporters of a plot that has contributed to the destruction of Cameroon and mortgaged the future of millions of people, especially the youth, of this Africa in miniature?” Kleda said. “In the present day of our history, can we stand before the Creator and affirm that we are managing this country so rich with so many resources that He has entrusted to us and that we have inherited from our ancestors?”

The prelate said it was time every Cameroonian rediscovered the fundamental values on which any society that respects itself should be based, namely respect for the dignity of every life, truth, justice, honesty, responsibility, freedom, love, equity, and loyalty.

“Above all, let each one have the courage to renounce the sin that makes him complicit in the drift of our country. Let each one of us contribute to the fight against the ‘structures of sin’, which paralyze and destroy Cameroon, its development, its growth and the well-being of its people,” Kleda said.

He said it was not a utopian idea for Cameroon to be able to build a society rooted in good governance, and insisted the way forward is simply to stand up to bad governance. He said it was indeed possible to “build a strong, prosperous, stable country, a true haven of peace where it is good to live as brothers.”

Cameroonians “must overcome the appetite for possession and illicit enrichment which are at the origin of these evils that undermine our country and operate a change of mentality and a radical and profound conversion,” the archbishop said.

“Let every Cameroonian, wherever he or she is and according to his or her activity, commit himself or herself in an honest and responsible way to the transformation of our country according to the values of the Gospel,” he explained.

The prelate also called for prayer and penance, noting that they are “the weapons that will enable those who lead us to govern our country well, and all of us to strive to eradicate these scourges that, like a fearsome demon, threaten our country dangerously.”

Source: Crux

Cameroon has deployed troops to a village in the west of the country after clashes between two ethnic groups, the Esu and the Mbororo. Authorities say members of the Esu burned scores of homes and buildings after armed Mbororo killed the Esu’s traditional ruler Wednesday for failing to stop Esu youth from joining anglophone separatists.

The Cameroon government says armed men on Wednesday night attacked and killed Kum Achou Albert, the traditional ruler of the Esu. Esu is a village in Menchum, in the English-speaking North West region on the border with Nigeria.

The government said Achou was returning from Wum, capital of the Menchum division, where he had been since March 5.

The government said while in Wum, Achou asked civilians to reconcile for peace and return to the western regions, where separatists have waged a battle against the government since 2017.

Abdullahi Aliou, the highest government official in Menchum, said armed men shot indiscriminately in the air, forcing the traditional ruler’s car to stop, then opened fire on the car’s occupants.

Ndzo Augustine Kum, the president of the Esu Cultural and Development Association, said the traditional ruler, known as the fon, was killed alongside his wife.

“As his royal highness the Fon of Esu was returning to his fondom he was waylaid and some yet to be identified gunmen bullet his car, thereby killing our fon and the wife. Others inside the car were wounded,” said Kum. “Honestly, Esu is in sorrow.”

Kum said Achou’s second wife sustained life threatening injuries from gunshots and was rushed to a hospital in Wum.

Cameroon’s military on Thursday said the armed men are suspected Mbororo youths who accuse the Esu traditional ruler of doing too little to stop his people from joining separatists and attacking the Mbororo.

Penn Elvis, a local humanitarian worker, said after the murders, Esu youths torched dozens of homes, farms and property belonging to Mbororos.

“At night the villagers stormed at the houses of the Mbororo and even the mosque was set ablaze because of the anger that came as a result of the death of their fon,” said Penn. “The security forces, that is the military, had to visit the place very early this morning to carry out investigations to maintain peace and serenity.”

Six people were injured in the attacks. The military said it deployed troops to Esu and surrounding villages but did not say how many troops were deployed.

Civilians say many Mbororo and non-Mbororo youths have been arrested.

The Mbororo ethnic group has always complained that it is the biggest casualty of Cameroons separatist crisis. Group members say separatist fighters have stolen and either slaughtered or sold thousands of cattle belonging to Mbororos. They say hundreds of Mbororos fled their ranches and are living in deplorable conditions in Cameroon’s French-speaking areas.

Mbororos say they are victims of fighter attacks because they have never supported separatists struggling to carve out an independent English-speaking state from French-majority Cameroon.

Jaji Manu Guidado, honorary president of a Mbororo cultural and development association, said Mbororos are disgruntled but added investigations should be carried out to ascertain if the traditional ruler of Esu and his wife were killed by Mbororo youths.

Source: VOA

The leadership of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has condemned the recent visit paid by the Francophone governor of the South West Okala Bilai to Ndian Division that comes amid intensified Ambazonia attacks on pro Yaoundé administrators.           

Vice President Dabney Yerima on Wednesday slammed the local CPDM elites and traditional rulers in Ekondo Titi for receiving Governor Okala Bilai in Ndian, saying the move is deemed as betrayal of Southern Cameroons.

“The visit is an insult to the people of Southern Cameroons”  Yerima added.

The exiled leader also expressed concern over statements made by the French Cameroun civil administrator during the visit.

The Ambazonia Interim Government expressed its regret over such visits, calling the so-called federalists in Southern Cameroons to stop providing the French Cameroun regime the opportunity to penetrate the Ambazonia homeland and to tamper with the interests of its counties.

“The IG reiterated its rejection of all forms of interaction with an enemy that violates Southern Cameroons sanctities and continues its aggression on the people of Southern Cameroons, continues to detain thousands of Southern Cameroons prisoners, kills Southern Cameroons children and destroys our homes, and displaces our people” the Yerima statement said.

Governor Okala Bilai travelled to Ekondo Titi a day after a roadside bomb killed both the Divisional Officer and mayor of Ekondo Titi.

By Isong Asu

In Cameroon, thousands of women protested on International Women’s Day Tuesday demanding more political power and government jobs. Women make up more than half of Cameroon’s population, but there is not a single female among the country’s 10 regional governors or council presidents.

Thousands of women turned out at the 20 Boulevard in Cameroon’s capital singing that they do not want to be treated as inferior to men any longer.

The Cameroon government said it expected between ten thousand and fifteen thousand women for International Women’s Day celebrations on Tuesday. But Cameroon’s Ministry of Women’s Empowerment said more than 20,000 came out in Yaounde to protest.

Similar protests took place in towns and villages across Cameroon, in both French- and English-speaking areas.

Nicoline Nwenushi Wazeh, founder of the NGO Pathways for Women’s Empowerment and Development, PaWED, says Cameroon’s government is not doing much for women to gain more political power or reach representation goals set by the United Nations and African Union.

“All four ministers of state are men. Out of the 39 ministers we only have six women. All ten governors of the regions are men. Of the 58 divisional officers we have only two women. The lack of political will has made it that Cameroon government neither respects the universal quota of 30% nor the African Union quota of 50-50,” she said.

Nwenushi said there are only 61 women in the 180-member the lower house of parliament and the Senate has 26 women against 74 men.

Mumah Bih Yvonne of the Cameroon Women’s Peace Movement’s says both President Paul Biya and Cameroon’s electoral laws make it difficult for women to climb to leadership positions.

“The electoral code does not clearly spell out what quota is reserved for women. It just mentions that gender should be taken into consideration. Women need to be pushed by political will so I think this government can do better by appointing women who are very apt in different positions,” Bih said.

Marie-Therese Abena Ondou is Cameroon’s Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family. She says the ministry she leads has been educating men to consider women as equals. She says she also educates women to contest for elected positions and not to be scared of intimidating men.

“Many men feel threatened when we talk about equality and we want to reassure them (men) that it is not that they [men] will be pushed aside, it is working together. Men and women are born equal and we should try to remember that both have the same potential if given the same opportunities,” Ondou said.

The U.N. marks International Women’s Day on March 8 to bring attention to women’s contributions to development and stop inequities. This year’s theme was “Gender Equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.

Source: VOA

Two Cameroonian nationals are set to appear in court today after they were arrested by the Joburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) undercover officers for possession of stolen copper in Bramley, north of Joburg.

JMPD spokesperson, Xolani Fihla said the two men were nabbed on Saturday, for possession of the stolen copper with an estimated value of R3 million.

“Working on information received, officers proceeded to corner 11th Road and 3rd Avenue in Bramley, where they observed the suspected property,” Fihla said.

“An unknown male opened the gate of the premises, officers approached him, identified themselves as police and proceeded to search inside the premises.”

While searching, they found another man inside the premises and discovered huge quantities of copper cut up into pieces.

“When questioned, the two males failed to give a valid explanation on how they acquired the copper and were immediately arrested. Upon arrest, the suspects attempted to bribe officers with R10 000 cash,” Fihla said.

City of Joburg’s power utility City Power and officials from state-owned enterprise, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) were called to the scene, to identify the recovered stash of copper.

“It was discovered that the copper belongs to Transnet and Prasa, and it cost an estimated value of R3 million worth of damage to infrastructure,” Fihla said.

The suspects were detained at Bramley SAPS and charged with damage to infrastructure, possession of stolen copper and bribery.

Source: IOL

Cameroon has sent military and senior civilian officials to ask residents not to flee from Ekondo Titi, an English-speaking western town where anglophone separatists this week killed seven people, including the most senior administrative official, the mayor and traditional ruler. The government says hundreds of civilians are fleeing to safer locations.

In a video, armed men identifying themselves as Ndian warriors brandish assault rifles and pledge total allegiance to what they say is their fight for the independence of Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions.

In the video, widely circulated on social media platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp, they display two assault rifles, an undisclosed amount of money and Cameroonian military uniforms.

They say the rifles, money and uniforms belonged to Cameroonian military and government officials they killed Wednesday in Ekondo Titi — a district in Ndian, an administrative unit in Cameroon’s English-speaking South-West region.

The main speaker in the video claims to be field marshal of anglophone separatists. He says fighters are developing a new modus operandi in their battle to achieve independence for Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions.

He says besides eliminating government troops, fighters have decided to target and kill all civilian workers representing Cameroon’s central government in the English-speaking western regions. He says those posted by the central government in Yaoundé should resign or refuse to work in English-speaking towns and villages.

Cameroon’s military said the video is that of fighters who killed seven people and government troops in Ekondo Titi this week.

A government release read Friday on Cameroon state radio, CRTV, said Paul Timothee Aboloa, highest government official and representative of President Paul Biya in Ekondo Titi, was among the officials killed by fighters.

The release said Nanji Kenneth, mayor of Ekondo Titi, and Ebeku William, the Ekondo Titi president of Cameroon’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party, also died.

The Cameroon government Friday said hundreds of civilians, especially government workers, have escaped from Ekondo Titi since Wednesday’s separatist bomb attack.

Bernard Okallia Bilai is the governor of the South-West region, where Ekondo Titi is located. He said he was sent to Ekondo Titi on Friday to ask frightened residents to stop fleeing. Bilai spoke via a messaging app.

He said he is at the head of a delegation of top government and military officials, politicians and clerics sent to Ekondo Titi by Biya. He said the delegation is telling people of Ekondo Titi who are going through terrifying moments that Biya and government troops will crush separatists who do not surrender.

Bilai said civilians should be vigilant and report suspects and strange people in the towns and villages to government troops or administrative officials.

Officials reported in November that a separatist attack on a school in Ekondo Titi killed four students and a teacher. Hundreds of teachers and students stopped going to school.

Timothe Abolo, before he died in Wednesday’s attack, said enough security measures had been taken to protect schools, teachers, students and government workers from further attack.

Source: VOA

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima says peace and stability would not prevail in both Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun until the decades-long French Cameroun occupation and marginalization issues are resolved through recognition of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia by the international community.

Speaking at a symposium organized by a Southern Cameroons think tank in the NordRhein Westphalia region of Germany on Friday, Vice President Dabney Yerima said Southern Cameroonians all over the globe will never be respected unless they come together and fight for the liberation of their homeland, which is the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Dabney Yerima highlighted that Southern Cameroonians can no longer coexist with a failed political structure that was concocted by French colonial authorities.

“Southern Cameroonians both in Ground Zero and in the diaspora must put the nasty past behind them and continue to support the resistance and its jailed leaders,” Yerima noted.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader reiterated that the path to peace is to stop the Biya French Cameroun military campaign.

The Ambazonia Interim Government has also called for intensified resistance as the sole way to counter French Cameroun acts of aggression against the people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia.

Dabney Yerima furthered that the strongest response to French Cameroun atrocities against Ambazonian women and children would be to intensify resistance and inflict heavy losses on the Francophone army soldiers and their Francophone administrators.

By Isong Asu

On 13 February 2022, President Paul Biya, who has been head of state since November 1982, turned 89. He celebrated his 40th anniversary as head of state with a few hand-picked guests at his palace in Mvomeka’a in an event that revealed the dictator had symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, a brain condition that causes memory loss and impaired ability to think clearly.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered from a reliable source that the nation’s long-reigning leader often forgets that his eldest son Franck Biya and wife are members of his family. “The Franck Biya and wife issue are among other heartbreaking lapses” our source added.  

The French Cameroun political elite has occupied Etoudi for 40 years, ascending to power on November 6, 1982.  He is now showing many signs of slowing down and his health is seriously challenged mindful of his advanced age.

According to some medical experts, nearly all CPDM barons including National Assembly Speaker Cavaye Djibril over the age of 80 suffer from some form of dementia, and Alzheimer’s is the leading cause of dementia symptoms.

Cameroon Intelligence Report also learnt that in addition to forgetting some members of his own family, Paul Biya has recently been found by his tribal presidential security aides roaming aimlessly around the Mvomeka’a palace lost and confused.

Biya’s aides many of whom are blood relations to his wife Chantal Biya are desperately trying to hide the head of state’s shocking health crisis.

Chantal Biya is pushing him slowly but surely mostly behind the scenes into handing over major portions of his presidential duties to Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and the Biya family supported by their acolytes have been insisting on state radio and television that Biya is in excellent health, while admitting that he is inevitably becoming a little more frail because of his age.

Franck Biya is also said to be assuming an increased share of the presidential workload with some political commentators even projecting him as President Biya’s next-of-kin for Cameroon’s top job.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai