Six people were killed in a fire that tore through a packed nightclub in Yaoundé police said on Sunday.

The tragedy occurred as many gathered late on Saturday January 22, 2022 in LIVS Night club in the Bastos district to watch the UFC 270 fight between Francis Ngannou and Cyril Gane.

Cameroon Concord News understands several others had to be evacuated from the night club moments after midnight after a fire broke out during celebration of Francis Ngannou’s victory.

Fire crews, police and paramedics were called to the scene as the Bastos Night Club was evacuated and a cordon was put in place.

Three men and two young ladies were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, the Yaoundé fire service said, while seven persons were taken to hospital.

An investigation into the blaze, which is understood to have broken out just minutes after customers celebrated Francis Ngannou’s victory, is ongoing.

An official of the Bastos district council said: “There was a fire in this venue after midnight. There was a full evacuation with deaths and serious injuries. Yaoundé city council has promised a full investigation into the fire.

Police sources say the provisional death toll from the incident is currently at six.  Pictures circulating on social media show lifeless bodies even burned and some transported in cabs.

By Rita Akana in Yaoundé

When the decision to have the 2021 AFCON held in Cameroon was announced, there was total jubilation in the country.

For the ordinary Cameroonian, the football festival will enable the nation develop world-class infrastructure.

For the youths, the world-class infrastructure will help them make the most of their talent. In their minds, if football is well-developed, they will be able to ply their trade and be able to help their families.

But for those in power like the Higher Education Minister, Jacques Fame Ndongo, the 2021 AfCON will be an opportunity for him and his partners in crime to demonstrate their epicurean sensibility.

And they did display that  greed on the day the Indomitable Lions were clashing with Cape Verde.

While other Cameroonians were cheering up the Lions, Fame Ndongo and his band of CPDM embezzlers were bathing in the most expensive wines some of which were sold for CFAF 3 million per bottle.

As they consumed the expensive wines at the expense of the impoverished taxpayers, they were boasting and demonstrating their capacity to waste government money.

But a few days after this stupidity was captured on video, Fame Ndongo and his collaborators are already losing sleep.

President Biya, who was also shocked by such madness, has ordered an investigation and the details will soon be available.

Those found guilty will be bundled to jail like those who caused the AfCON infrastructure to be very expensive.

Stay tuned!

Three teachers, the headmaster and a deputy head were kidnapped from a Cameroonian high school by armed men in one of two English-speaking regions plagued by an armed conflict between separatists and soldiers, a teachers’ union told AFP on Friday.

“An armed group burst into the Weh bilingual high school on Tuesday and kidnapped five people,” said Roger Kafo, secretary general of the National Union of Secondary Teachers (Snaes).

Armed separatists regularly attack schools which they accuse of teaching in French, and kill civil servants, including teachers, whom they accuse of “collaborating” with the central government in Yaounde.

Students have been abducted and later released.

“At the moment we don’t have any news of the hostages and none has been freed,” Kafo added.

The hostages were the principal, the deputy head and three teachers.

The northwest and southwest regions have been rocked by violence since 2017 when anglophone militants declared independence from the majority French-speaking country.

Yaounde responded with a crackdown.

Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives and forced over 700,000 to flee their homes.

Source: The Guardian

Southern Cameroons Department of Foreign Affairs has blasts the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon over a declaration made public during the 45^th plenary assembly that held in Ngaoundéré in the Adamawa Region from January 8 to 15, 2022 on the situation of human rights in Southern Cameroons saying the Francophone Roman Catholic Bishops should first pay attention to the actual crimes against humanity that were being committed against the people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia.

Professor Carlson Anyangwe made the remarks late on Friday in reaction to a statement devised by Bishop Emmanuel Abbo of Ngaoundéré, president of the 45th plenary assembly of the Bishops of Cameroon National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon on Radio France International (RFI).

“His Lordship Bishop Emmanuel Abbo should, to begin with, wake up from his deep sleep and condemn the devastating effects of the Biya French Cameroun war on Southern Cameroonians access to their bare necessities, including medical and pharmaceutical items during the coronavirus pandemic,” Professor Carlson Anyangwe said.

On the occasion of its 45th plenary assembly held in Ngaoundéré in the Adamawa Region from January 8 to 15, 2022, the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon strongly denounced the stalemate in the numerous crises in Cameroon with particular reference to the armed struggle in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia.

“The crisis in Anglophone Cameroon continues because there are some people who maintain it, precisely because it suits them. There are some who will do nothing to stop this crisis because for them this crisis has a certain financial and material advantage. The information we have received clearly shows that these conflicts are maintained. First of all by the actors themselves on the ground. It has become a business for the Ambazonians who commit exactions, who rob the population. It has become a way for them to get rich. The crisis is also maintained by certain authorities who do not want this war to end because it is to their advantage,” said Bishop Emmanuel Abbo of Ngaoundéré in an interview on Rfi on Sunday, January 16, 2022.

Professor Carlson Anyangwe called the claims made by Bishop Emmanuel Abbo that had based some of its contents on alleged information provided by the Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde spiteful and worthless as well as confrontational.

Anyangwe said Bishop Emmanuel Abbo’s comments had been devised based on a selective approach and denounced the Roman Catholic cleric for adding his voice in pursuance of French Cameroun political goals.

Professor Carlson Anyangwe asserted that Vice President Dabney Yerima has invariably taken steps towards expansion and enhancement of human rights throughout the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

By Isong Asu in London

A Cameroon government army commander was killed this week after an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Muyuka.

A military source told Cameroon Concord News that the popular soldier, who was  charged with providing security for a French Cameroun company known as Super Mont in Muyuka, was leading an escort mission to the company’s premises when the bomb went off.

Our source said the officer was among the many immediately rushed to the Muyuka hospital who died later from wounds he sustained during the attack. It was unclear whether some of his troops, including members of the pro Yaounde Atanga Nji Boys, were injured or killed during the explosion.

Cameroon Concord News has withheld the name of the officer as it was unclear whether or not his family has been notified by the Cameroon government military.

The office of the Divisional Officer for Muyuka, did not return a request for comment on the attack that killed the commander.

The soldier has become the latest officer to die in Fako County since the beginning of the Africa Cup of Nations.

The Muyuka attack has raised fresh concerns about Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards ability to launch surprise strikes against French Cameroun army soldiers.

Two Cameroon government military vehicles were reportedly destroyed.

By Rita Akana

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima says the people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia strongly rejects any form of occupation of their homeland, be it for the hosting of the Africa Cup of Nations and believes that all French Cameroun army soldiers will finally have to leave British Southern Cameroons.

In a conversation with Cameroon Concord News on Tuesday, the exiled Southern Cameroons leader highlighted the necessity of continued Ambazonia resistance, saying the illegal presence of La Republique du Cameroun troops and the Atanga Nji Boys must come to an end.

French Cameroun currently occupies a large swathe of Southern Cameroons territory and has deployed thousands of French speaking soldiers to the Fako County for the Africa Cup of Nations – moves that have been condemned by the Ambazonia Interim Government.

The French Cameroun regime has also been maintaining an illegal military presence on the Northern Zone precisely in Bamenda collaborating with pro Yaoundé armed groups known as Atanga Nji Boys.

The Francophone dominated military has stationed its forces and equipment in Limbe, Mutengene, Tiko, Muea and Buea with the alleged aim of preventing Amba fighters from attacking football teams in the Fako constituency.

Nonetheless, the Ambazonia Interim Government says the French Cameroun military presence in Southern Cameroons is meant to plunder British Southern Cameroons resources, including its oil.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

On the fourth day of the Africa Cup of Nations in the Fako County, Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards acted on the threat that was made public by the Southern Cameroons Interim Government.

A dozen Amba fighters fired AK-47s into the air less than a quarter-mile from where the Malian national  team was practicing, spooking the players off the field and drawing  Francophone army soldiers into a shootout that killed a taxi driver and his passenger.

In Molyko,Buea, a Southern Cameroons self defense force tossed a homemade bomb from a cab window, wounding three police officers. A bus of Gambian footballers, startled by the chaos, raced back to their hotel.

Troops and Ambazonia fighters exchanged fire in Buea and several people were wounded in the gunfight.

In a rare public evaluation of self defense actions by Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards,the Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, Dabney Yerima has lauded the Federal Republic of Ambazonia’s ever-increasing power in  nearly all Southern Cameroons constituencies, saying the enemy received Ambazonia’s resistance message of strength during the Africa Cup of Nations.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader furtherred that La Republique du Cameroun recently  acknowledged the power of Ambazonia Self Defense Forces, citing the confession made by the Francophone governor of the South West Okala Bilai as an example.

French Cameroun governor Okala Bilai had said the attack deep inside Buea threatening the Africa Cup of Nations meant that Biya regime troops were operating without complete superiority for the first time ever since the conflict started five years ago.

Yaounde has received the message of Amba fighters power, Dabney Yerima said, stressing the need for the Southern Cameroons diaspora to invest in the Bank of Ambazonia and the Big Rubbergun Project to help Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards to grow stronger every day and to be able to defend the homeland.

Elsewhere in his comments, Vice President Dabney Yerima pointed out that fire power is not simply AK-47s, armored cars and expired Made in France military trucks but also the spiritual readiness of the human forces and the oppressed people.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

At least five people were killed and several others injured on Tuesday in an accident involving a bus and a truck on the outskirts of Cameroon’s capital city of Yaounde, according to the police.

The accident occurred on the Yaounde-Ebolowa highway precisely at the Mengueme locality by 10 a.m. when a 30-seater bus lost control and collided head-on with the truck, police said.

The bus then plunged into a steepy bush, causing enormous damage.

Five people died on the spot and the injured were rushed to a local hospital, eyewitnesses said.

Such accidents in Cameroon are often linked to the poor state of roads and drivers’ ignorance.

The Ministry of Transport estimates that 1,500 people die in road accidents each year in the Central African nation.

Source: Xinhuanet

The Southern Cameroons Department of Foreign Affairs has condemned the international community including FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for the silence on crimes against humanity being committed by Francophone army soldiers in British Southern Cameroons.

The Ambazonia Department of Foreign Affairs, in a statement released on Tuesday, said the brutal La Republique regime and its backers in Paris, were racing against time using the Africa Cup of Nations to implement its French colonial settlement plans in the entire British Southern Cameroons as part of attempts to distort historical realities and keep the people of Southern Cameroons under French Cameroun dominance forever.

The statement signed jointly by Vice President Dabney Yerima and Professor Carlson Anyangwe said such bids were meant to serve French geo-political and colonial interests in the Gulf of Guinea and is intended to shut the door on the establishment of an independent and sovereign British Southern Cameroons state with Buea as its capital.

The Southern Cameroons Department of Foreign Affairs noted that French Cameroun troops deployed to Southern Cameroons recently due to the Africa Cup of Nations have targeted innocent Southern Cameroons civilian population particularly those in the rural areas.

The Yerima-Anyangwe statement then denounced the deliberate silence maintained by the international community over French Cameroun crimes in Buea, Bamenda and Limbe which includes ethnic cleansing, the killing of an SDF Senator as well as malicious repressive measures against the people of Southern Cameroons.

The Ambazonia Interim Government held in the statement that Yaoundé is fully and primarily responsible for ongoing violations and crimes in the entire Southern Cameroons.

By Isong Asu in London

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima says Ambazonia leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, who is currently being held by the French Cameroun regime, helped create a self defense front in Southern Cameroons against the presence of French Cameroun occupation forces.

Vice President Dabney Yerima made the comments on Saturday, while addressing an Ambazonia security forum on the way forward for the the struggle and the Southern Cameroons refugee crisis via zoom.

The Southern Cameroons exiled leader noted that the presence of Francophone soldiers in  the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has brought about nothing other than destruction, bloodshed and displacement stating that the targeted killing of Senator Kemende by troops loyal to the French Cameroun regime will have severe repercussions for the entire French Cameroun administrative apparatus in Southern Cameroons after the Africa Cup of Nations.

Yerima highlighted that the late SDF Senator made great grounds across the entire Southern Cameroons, adding that all Southern Cameroons restoration groups can draw valuable lessons from his martyrdom.

French Cameroun has occupied Southern Cameroons for many years and continues to massacre Ambazonian people and looting the territory’s natural resources. It was French Cameroun that created the Atanga Nji Boys and President Biya and his gang, therefore, bears complete responsibility for the extremists’ crimes and acts of terror committed by Francophone army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons.

By Chi Prudence Asong