The Cameroon army said Sunday its troops have killed a notorious gang leader of multiple high-profile crimes in restive English-speaking region of Northwest.

The gang leader simply identified as Fonteh alias Mad Dog was killed in an operation conducted by Special Forces early Sunday in Bamenda, the region’s chief town, the army said.

Fonteh was notorious for abductions, theft, harassment and killing of several civilians and members of government forces in the region, according to security reports.

The region has been facing an armed separatist conflict since 2017. It is unclear if Funteh was part of separatist fighters who attempt to create an independent nation in the two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.

Source: Xinhuanet

Ulrich Njoh Mussima, a Cameroonian who went into hiding after inflicting knife wounds on a woman, has been picked up by the Tesano Divisional Police Command.

He was picked at the Amasaman court last Thursday after he had gone to court to support his colleagues in another case.

The victim (name withheld), according to the police, was injured in the nose, chest and right shoulder during the attack.

The Accra Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), DSP Effia Tenge, said on August 27, a complainant who is a neigbour to the suspect reported to the Tesano Divisional Police Command that some foreigners were operating a pub in the area and were making excessive noise.

According to the complainant, several reports had been made to owners of the pub and the police about their activities, and the police proceeded to arrest four persons, namely Toungo Thera, Mola Asobo, Michael Matouala and Mouladi Bycther, who are from Cameroon, Congo and Senegal.

“The machines they were using were also seized and brought to the station by the police team,” DSP Tenge disclosed.

The police officer said Mussima was not at the scene but upon hearing the news about the arrest of his colleagues, he stormed the house of the complainant to attack him for reporting them, but he (complainant) was not present.

He then vented his spleen on the complainant’s daughter and inflicted knife wounds on her.

DSP Tenge said last Wednesday, the four arrested suspects appeared before court for trial and Mussima went there to offer support for them and was arrested.

Source: Daily Guide

Rachel Tarh (not her real name) is four months pregnant. She is from the English-speaking north-west region of Cameroon, but lives on the outskirts of Douala, the largest city. Along with her family, she was displaced by conflict between separatist rebels and government forces.

When Cameroon implemented Covid-19 restrictions in March, Tarh’s school was closed along with all the others. So she started working with her mother, selling meat in the market. She met a customer she liked, and became sexually involved with him. Now she’s pregnant.

“I have been crying since then, I am always locked up in the house. My parents too are not happy with

what I have done,” said Tarh. The father has refused to take any responsibility, and she’s scared for her future.

“It’s hard for me to continue this business, it brings back memories of the days I used to go out and sell, and the promises the father of my unborn child made to me. I equally wonder if my mother can trust any of my younger ones to go out and sell. Most of our customers are men who drink in bars, at times I tried to be nice to them so they would buy from me. That is where I met the father of my baby,” she said.

It is unlikely that Tarh will return to school. “All of us used to go to school, my parents farmed for us to go to school. My mother said whatever I made as profit from the meat I sold would help me go back to school. Now my parents have to worry about me and my baby.”

Rachel’s first visit to the hospital for antenatal care was a week ago. The floods and the rains have made things worse: the roads leading to their neighbourhood are inaccessible. She was only able to afford the journey and the medical care thanks to support from two local non-governmental organisations, the Rahel Randy Foundation and Rural Doctors.

The double crisis

Tarh’s story is not unique. She is one of many young women whose lives have been impacted by not one but two crises: Covid-19 and the ongoing conflict in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions. In Douala, the worsening economy and the closure of schools has forced many young women — already trying to recover from being displaced — to turn to sex work to make ends meet, or made them vulnerable to exploitative men.

This has led to a surge in teenage pregnancies, according to the Rahel Randy Foundation, which focuses on uplifting underprivileged and orphaned girls. Ten of the 50 young women they work with have become pregnant during the pandemic. Of these, most do not have access to maternal healthcare, and suffer from familial stigma.

“Most parents fear to open up on or report these cases,” said Rahel Randy, the head of the foundation. “This ends up affecting the girl child negatively. Many times, they drop out of school, and some end up as single child mothers who head families.”

According to the United Nations Children’s Agency, maternal mortality in Cameroon is among the highest in the world at 596 deaths per 100 000 births.

Source: Mail/Guardian

After 18 months of investigation, the former French Cameroun Minister of Defense is now ready to face the long arm of the law.  Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o, detained for 18 months at the Yaounde-Kondengui Central Prison, will now appear before a grand jury at the Special Criminal Court.

According to French Cameroun intelligence files, Mr. Mebe Ngo’o is accused of embezzlement of public funds estimated at 20 billion CFA francs that he maliciously pilfered through over-invoicing and fictitious public contracts.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the ex French Cameroun Defense boss is also at the centre of another financial crime estimated at 300 million Euros or 196 billion CFA francs intended for a Polytechnological project with the Peoples Republic of China in the context of the purchase of military equipment for the French Cameroun army. And to top it all off, the native of Sangmelima is also accused of money laundering estimated at 20 billion CFA francs.

Placed in detention in Kondengui prison since March 2019, the former French Cameroun Minister of Defence (2009-2015) continues to claim his innocence and that of his wife and his three co-defendants Mbangue Maxime Leopold, Mboutou Elle Ghislain Victor and Menye Victor Emmanuel.

Reported by Besong Esther Agbor in Halmstad with files from Rita Akana in Yaounde

Cameroon’s military has detained hundreds of people in the country’s troubled northwest as they search for separatists following the killing of a police officer this week. Locals accuse the military of carrying out revenge attacks, including looting and burning shops, in the English-speaking region — a charge the military denies.

 Thirty-four-year old fish seller Ernestine Sahmo says she has decided to temporarily leave the English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda due to what she says is military brutality. 

Sahmo says she was forced out of her shop by armed soldiers who detained 80 other women at a police station for three days.

“The military entered the whole market and was removing everybody,” she said. “They will break into your store and then start brutalizing you, asking you to go out. They succeeded to remove everybody from the food market to the mobile police station. We were being asked to sit on the ground. Some women were collapsing. The way they terrorized us, we never knew we would come back alive.”

Sahmo says store owners’ goods were either looted or torched by the military.

Last Monday, the government said separatist fighters in Bamenda killed a policeman in active service. The military was then deployed to hunt for the killers.

Residents said troops started arresting people indiscriminately, forcing some either to undress or to sit on the floor for several hours.

Scared civilians escaped to neighboring villages and French-speaking towns including Mbouda and Bafoussam. The government said at least two civilians were killed but did not say if separatists or troops were responsible.

General Valere Nka, the commander of government troops fighting the separatists in the English-speaking northwest regions, says the military has not committed any atrocities. He says his troops have remained professional.

He says his troops fully obey instructions given by the military hierarchy for civilians to be protected and their human rights respected. Nka says he expects civilians who have been assured of total protection by the military to denounce all suspected separatist fighters in their localities.

Mka pledged to kill all fighters who do not drop their weapons and seek forgiveness.

 Rights groups and opposition political parties have condemned the military for what they say are excesses and torture of civilians in handling the crisis.

Prince Ekosso, president of the opposition United Socialist Party, says civilians are scared of the military. He says some of the abuses inflicted by troops on civilians are unbearable.

“These are the things that we have decried for too long,” he said. “The people of the northwest and the southwest region cannot continue to suffer like this. You don’t go and punish innocent people for the crimes of another person. The military continues to terrorize the people.”

Last week, a Cameroonian rights group, the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, released what it said is a list of atrocities committed in the English-speaking regions between May and August.

The group accused the military of atrocities including extra-judicial executions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, looting and extortion, poor prison conditions, and inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees.

The human rights body called for an investigation to be carried out and those found guilty to be punished.

Unrest broke out in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions in 2016, when teachers and lawyers protested the dominance of the French language and French-speaking officials. 

Rebels took up arms a year later, demanding a separate English-speaking state they call the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Source: VOA

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, strongly condemns an attack which killed seven people and wounded 14 others at Koyapé, a village hosting internally displaced people in Cameroon’s Far North Region on 1 September.

The suicide bomb attack took place near Kolofata, close to the border with Nigeria, where some 18,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have sought safety over the past seven years. It comes just a month after 18 people died and 15 were injured in an attack by an armed group attack against the Nguétchéwé IDP site on the second of August.

“We are horrified by these senseless attacks on people who have been torn from their villages, fleeing violence perpetrated by armed gangs which rage in the region, only to be stripped of safety again after they just found refuge elsewhere,” said Olivier Guillaume Beer, UNHCR Representative in Cameroon.

“The killing of innocent civilians has to stop. This is contrary to international humanitarian law and human rights law. We call on armed groups to respect the rights and lives of civilians populations.”

An estimated 7,000 Cameroonians from Kordo and Guérédou villages near the country’s border with Nigeria have fled their homes since 11 August, seeking safety in neighbouring areas.

The displaced population has been targeted in relentless attacks, forcing them to flee.

Recent attacks follow a significant rise in violent incidents in Cameroon’s Far North Region, including looting and kidnapping by Boko Haram and other armed groups active in the region. Brutal violence has plagued the Lake Chad Basin, killing more than 30,000 people and forcing over three million to flee. Some 2.7 million people are now displaced internally in Northeast Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Another 300,000 Nigerian refugees have fled into neighbouring countries.

Culled from UNHCR

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has strongly urged all Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Ground 1 and in Ground Zero including their leadership in the West to sew up their differences and prepare to confront the French Cameroun occupational army on October 1.

Dabney Yerima made the comments on Thursday in Holland, after he reportedly had a joined plenary meeting of his fellow Southern Cameroons leaders.

“As we prepare to celebrate our national day this coming October, all Southern Cameroons Self Defense Groups must come together to tell the world that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia will forever remain united against French Cameroun colonialism” he said.

Vice President Yerima noted that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and its people are going through an unprecedented and dangerous stage of their struggle with French Cameroun political elites attempting to distract Southern Cameroonians with their so-called regional elections.

The Southern Cameroons exiled leader pointed out that 35, 000 Southern Cameroonians were not killed for the purpose of staging a French Cameroun teleguided regional election in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Dabney Yerima again condemned the fledgling trend of détente between some Southern Cameroons traditional rulers and Minister Paul Atanga Nji and his occupying French Cameroun regime.

By Isong Asu in London

At least seven people were killed and 14 others wounded in suicide bomb attack in a village hosting internally displaced people in Cameroon’s Far North region, the second of such attack in a month, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.

The attack on Tuesday took place in Goldavi, close to the border with Nigeria, where some 18,000 people fleeing the violent insurgency, had sought refuge.

“We are horrified by these senseless attacks on people who have been torn from their villages, fleeing violence perpetrated by armed gangs which rage in the region, only to be stripped of safety again after they just found refuge elsewhere,” said Olivier Guillaume Beer, UNHCR Representative in Cameroon.

The UN agency said the recent attacks follow a significant rise in violent incidents in Cameroon’s Far North Region, including looting and kidnapping by Boko Haram and other armed groups active in the region.

A spokesman for Cameroon’s government was not immediately available to comment.

Suspected militants from Islamist group Boko Haram killed at least 18 people and wounded seven early last month in a grenade attack on a camp for displaced people in northern Cameroon.

The UNHCR said that an estimated 7,000 Cameroonian villagers near the border with Nigeria have fled their homes since 11 August, seeking safety in neighbouring areas.

“The displaced population has been targeted in relentless attacks, forcing them to flee,” it said, adding that the decade-long Boko Haram insurgency has killed over 30,000 in the Lake Chad Basin, and forced over three million to flee their homes.

Source: Reuters

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has once again censured La Republique du Cameroun’s Grand National Dialogue that is yet to grant the so-called Special Status to the people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, stating that the only thing that was achieved in the Yaoundé talks was the acceptance of the Biya French Cameroun’s regime continued acts of aggression against Southern Cameroonians.

In a statement on Wednesday, Vice President Dabney Yerima observed that the recent French Cameroun military atrocities in Bamenda demonstrated the only thing that was reached in Yaoundé by the Dion Ngute and Peter Mafany Musonge gangs.

Yerima also referred to the killings in Muyuka and Mautu where French Cameroun forces brutally murdered an elderly Southern Cameroonian woman and a young man who operated a small business in Mautu village.

After the Grand National Dialogue that held in Yaoundé, the French Cameroun leader and his ruling CPDM elites announced a Special Status for the people of Southern Cameroons in an attempt to normalize the crisis situation in British Southern Cameroons which sparked protests and condemnations from the Ambazonia Interim Government including its leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

Vice President Dabney Yerima vehemently condemned the actions of the French Cameroun army in Bamenda and said that Southern Cameroons groups should unite and strengthen the resistance front.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Cameroon says it is increasing security along its borders with the Central African Republic and Nigeria after suspected rebel incursions and interceptions of vehicles transporting explosives.

Government officials and the military braved a heavy downpour in northern Cameroon Monday to visit the commercial town of Pakete on the border with Nigeria. Jean Abate Edi, governor of Cameroon’s North region where Pakete is located said his trip is to make sure that the border with Nigeria is immediately secured.

He said intelligence reports at his disposal indicate that security is threatened on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria. He said henceforth vehicles known locally as Starlettes are prohibited from transporting goods into Cameroon from Nigeria and that the military has been reinforced along the Nigerian border.

Edi did not say how many more troops have been deployed to the border zone.

Jude Mofor, coordinator of a government operation to secure the border zone, said he invited the governor and his top officials because of the increasing wave of insecurity along the border. He says last week the military intercepted two vehicles bringing into Cameroon explosives from Nigeria. He said Starlettes are increasingly being used in transporting illegal and prohibited goods.

“As our normal duty, we control everything that enters the country. This Starlette was coming and then we stopped it and it refused to stop. Our boys used a special technique that we have to stop vehicles. While controlling, the two occupants of the vehicle ran away. It is then we discovered this stock of explosives,” he said.

Mofor said they had opened investigations to determine the origin and destination of the explosives. He said they also seized and were keeping what he described as huge quantities of prohibited goods from Nigeria that may undermine the security of Cameroonians.

The governor said he suspected that the explosives were either destined to commit atrocities in Cameroon or were in transit to the troubled neighboring Central African Republic.

General Agha Robinson, commander of Cameroon troops fighting insecurity on Cameroon’s border with C.A.R. and Nigeria also visited the border zones. Robinson said the military also has noticed an increase in the number of people abducted for ransom along Cameroon’s border with C.A.R.

Robinson said he has increased troops on that border because Cameroon has within a week reported eight incursions from suspected C.A.R. rebels.

“We came to analyze the operations ongoing so that the success we are recording these days should continue. We came down also to talk to our soldiers to make them know that they have to carry out their mission with professional consciousness. We want to end by calling on the population to go towards those soldiers to denounce [suspects] and then they [the military] will be able to defend them [easily],” he said.

Robinson said in one of the incursions, the rebels left with an undisclosed number of cattle and money they seized from ranchers in the border town of Tignere.

Civilians said two other attacks on merchants were reported in the border town of Galim. They said the rebels also seized gasoline and fled on motorcycles.

Last Sunday a confrontation with Cameroon military killed three suspected rebels remaining in Tignere.

The Cameroon military said it seized war weapons from the rebels who had attacked to gain supplies but gave no further details.

Cameroon shares an 800-kilometer long boundary with the landlocked C.A.R. There are currently some 250,000 C.A.R. refugees in Cameroon.

For the past eight years, sectarian Christian and Muslim militias in C.A.R. have been waging war against each other with horrific violence.

Source: VOA