A road accident in Cameroon’s West region has killed at least 12 people and injured 58 others, according to local police.

The accident occurred early Sunday along the Bafoussam-Foumbot highway in the region, the police said.

Witnesses said a truck transporting more than 50 farmers attempted to escape from a police checkpoint but lost track and fell down.

Twelve people, including women and children, died on the spot, witnesses said.

The 58 injured, some in “critical condition”, have been sent to hospital, said the police.

Local authorities have ordered an immediate investigation into the tragedy.

Source: Xinhuanet

Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade, has expressed optimism that the return of peace in Southern Cameroon will pave the way for the return of thousands of Cameroonian refugees to their home country.

This is as the Cameroonian Consul General in Calabar, Onono Patrice, commended the government and people of Cross River State for showing tremendous hospitality to the refugees.

Ayade, who spoke while receiving a delegation of consular officials, led by Patrice, at the governor’s office in Calabar, commended the Cameroonian government for taking steps to bring normalcy to the troubled parts of the country’s South.

“I am delighted to host you today as you come as a messenger to deliver the message of the impending visit of my counterpart in South West Cameroon. I want to hereby tell you that I have without hesitation approved the courtesy visit which you will organise with the secretary to government and my commissioner for foreign affairs. They will work with you towards fixing a date that will be suitable for me to receive him here in Calabar afterwards embark on a journey to Obudu,” he said.

Earlier, the consul general told Governor Ayade he was instructed by President Paul Biya to intimate him of the desire of the governor of that country’s South West region to visit the state.

“Our visit this morning was instructed by the Republic of Cameroon President, Biya. He had instructed a consul visit to our refugees in Cross River State and this consul visit is a mission of the governor of the South West region which shares border with Cross River state. And Cross River State is hosting about 62 percent of the Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria,” Patrice said.

Source: Sunnews

Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute on Thursday appealed for “more sustained” funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to support African countries striken by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ngute made the appeal at the start of a video conference with the African governors of the World Bank Group and IMF. “It must be admitted that the crisis will have a significant impact on African economies.

This is why I call on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to take more sustained and ambitious actions in favour of Africa in terms of access to funding,” he said.

He said African states need to develop strategies to be more resilient to future external shocks and crises by strengthening health infrastructure and putting human capital at the center of development policies.

Delegates, including ministers of finance and central bank governors from 54 African countries, have discussed issues related to the response to COVID-19 and the recovery strategies of various countries during the two-day conference hosted by Cameroon.

Source: Xinhuanet

An avalanche of condemnation from human rights advocates has followed new of the death of a Cameroonian detainee under shocking circumstances.

Tangem Thomas Nganyu, 57, a former monk and metal sheet engineer died at the Yaounde Central Hospital on Wednesday, chained to his hospital bed, his lawyer, Barrister Nicodemus Amungwa Tanyi said.

“Tangem died in chains to the satisfaction of the prison and justice administrators,” the lawyer said.

Tangem was one of hundreds of English speakers arrested in the wake of a bloody conflict in the country’s two English speaking regions of the Northwest and Southwest, where armed separatists have been fighting since 2017 to create an independent Anglophone state called Ambazonia.

NEGLECT CLAIM

Reports say he was arrested in Buea, in the Southwest region over three years ago and whisked to an overcrowded maximum security prison in the capital where he fell ill.

Tangem’s family said prison authorities neglected his illness until late last month when he was rushed to the hospital after his condition deteriorated.

Images of him cuffed to a hospital bed despite his poor health inundated social media platforms prior to his death.

The Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) condemned the poor treatment of the detainee who it said was arbitrarily arrested and detained in very poor conditions, leading to worse state.

“CHRDA is concerned about the fact that he was unable to get proper medical attention, a right enshrined under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Cameroon Criminal Procedure Code,” the organisation said in a statement.

“We call on Cameroonian prison authorities to provide better medical services to inmates and not subject them to any form of inhumane and degrading treatment,” CHRDA said further.

Tsi Conrad, one of the detainees of the Anglophone crisis currently serving a 15-year jail sentence, said Tangem died from pain and misery.

“Without judgment, he prayed to go home. Three years behind bars in a dungeon of pain, hope made way for delusion. For nothing, Pa Tangem Thomas died in body but his soul now looks from above at his foe,” Tsi wrote from jail.

The government is yet to make an official statement about what observers describe as inhumane treatment.

JOURNALIST’S DEATH

Tangem’s death comes barely two months after the government confirmed that another detainee of the Anglophone crisis, Samuel Ajiekah Abuwe alias Samuel Wazizi, died in military custody in Yaounde.

Police arrested the journalist on August 3, 2019 in the South West region. He was transferred to military custody on August 7 then ferried to the nation’s capital Yaoundé six days later, according to the military.

Though he died on August 17, 2019, his death was only confirmed in June. The military also denied accusations that he was tortured to death, saying he died “as a result of severe sepsis.”

Commentators say the two deaths show the precarious conditions which some inmates arrested in connection to the socio-political crisis in the Anglophone regions are going through in detention facilities across the country.

The two English speaking regions of Cameroon have remained volatile since a peaceful demonstration by teachers and lawyers, over perceived marginalisation, morphed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Over 3,000 civilians and hundreds of security forces personnel have been killed in the Anglophone regions since the crisis started, according to Human Rights Watch.

The UN estimates that at least 700,000 others are internally displaced.

Source: Daily Nation

Vice President Dabney Yerima has called for the establishment of a Southern Cameroons committee composed of all Ambazonia groups and frontline leaders to avenge the murder of engineer Tangem Thomas in French Cameroun and map a collective strategy on how to get to Buea.

In a conversation with Cameroon Concord News London Bureau Chief, Vice President Dabney Yerima said the killing of Comrade Tangem Thomas is part of a French Cameroun regime’s move to silently eliminate all Southern Cameroons prisoners of conscience including President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader, whose remarks were published by the Cameroon Intelligence Report, further said that French Cameroun’s persisting policy in arresting and killing senior Southern Cameroons figures should be countered with a strong response from Ambazonia Restoration Forces. 

Vice President Yerima also emphasized the need to target French Cameroun civil administrators be they of Southern Cameroons origin.

The Ambazonia Interim Government collected testimony regarding the late Tangem Thomas arbitrary arrest and torture last year and despite the intervention of a legal defense team, the French Cameroun government judiciary authorities refused to release him.

Thomas Tangem went through unimaginable torture and his medical conditions deteriorated considerably as a result of his incarceration. Yaoundé prison and hospital authorities denied him everything including physiotherapy and surgery.  He passed away in solitary confinement in a windowless room in Central Hospital in Yaounde.

By Isong Asu

ABDUCTION AND MURDER OF TANGEM THOMAS BY FRENCH CAMEROUN

Fellow Ambazonians,

I come to you today as our nation mourns the loss of another citizen as a result of the barbarism of the French Cameroon regime. On Monday 2 August 2020, our legal representatives briefed the Interim Government of Ambazonia with photographic evidence that a Southern Cameroons Prisoner of Conscience, Mr Tangem Thomas, was shackled to his bed at the Central hospital in Yaoundé. His physical condition was deteriorating and it presented a grave concern for the Interim Government.

I want to make public that earlier today, Mr Tangem sadly succumbed to his injuries at the Yaoundé Central Hospitaland passed on to glory. The Interim Government can confirm explicitly that he died from torture related injuries and trauma.

Mr Tangem Thomas was a holy man with sound mechanical engineering background and expertise. He was abducted by La Republique du Cameroun forces in 2017 and detained incommunicado at the torture chamber of SED Yaoundé until a few weeks ago when his wellbeing had deteriorated wretchedly. He was never charged for any crime and died for being an Ambazonian.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his immediate family at this very testing time.

The barbarism unleashed by La Republique du Cameroun upon our citizens is shocking and incontestable but our quest for justice and freedom will remain unquenchable. We must keep our eyes on the prize of freedom. No dosage of incivility and viciousness will stop us now. As a nation, our promise to Mr Tangem Thomas must be to never give up in our quest for freedom and justice.

As a nation, we would be presenting the facts of this tragedy to our international partners and organisations over the next few hours. 

Thank You

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The United Nations refugee agency says victims of a suspected Boko Haram terror attack on an IDP camp in Cameroon’s Far North region remain unprotected and in need of urgent help.  At least 18 people were killed and 11 others injured.

The camp housing 800 internally displaced people was attacked early Sunday. Militant jihadists reportedly threw a grenade into the compound while people were sleeping.

The U.N. refugee agency says it is outraged by this brutal, unprovoked attack and condemns it in the strongest terms.  UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch tells VOA that Nigeria-based terror group Boko Haram is suspected of being behind the attack.

“In Cameroon, since early this year, more than 87 attacks have been recorded, which are attributed to Boko Haram.  It has affected millions of people in the region and only in this area of Cameroon, there are more than 320,000 people displaced,” he said.

This latest attack near the village of Nguetchewe follows an upsurge of violence in Cameroon’s Far North Region, including looting and kidnapping.  Civilians in this area, which covers Chad and north-east Nigeria, have been at the mercy of Boko Haram and other armed groups for years.

Baloch says the attack on the IDP camp has caused some 1,500 people, including terrified residents of the hosting village, to flee to a nearby town for safety.  He says the UNHCR is sending an emergency mission to assess the situation and evaluate the protection and health needs of those affected.

“Against the backdrop of growing insecurity, UNHCR anticipates enhanced protection, shelter, water and sanitation will be needed as the country responds to the COVID-19 pandemic… Access a uge issue for humanitarians in this region in terms of providing humanitarian support,” said Baloch.

The U.N. says Boko Haram violence in the Lake Chad Basin region has cost the lives of 30,000 people, displaced more than three million and forced nearly 300,000 Nigerians to seek refuge in neighboring countries.

Source: VOA

The General Delegation of National Security has aired out a radio message banning Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga from leaving the country.

The message made public on Wednesday, August 5, 2020 and signed by the Director of the Border Police, Dr. Jean Louis Messing also gave standing orders to the immigration department to withdraw Mr. Belinga Amougou’s passport.

The reasons for this dramatic u turn of events in Yaoundé against the Chairman and CEO of the group l’Anecdote were not available at the time of filing this report.

However, people in the know have opined that the owner of Vision 4 television channel is wanted by the Special Criminal Court for embezzlement, corruption and money laundering.

By Rita Akana

The Biya Francophone regime’s imposed war on Southern Cameroons and the Cameroon government military campaign indiscriminately targeting the Ambazonian people is reportedly causing the deaths of several Southern Cameroons prisoners of conscience.

Engineer Tangem Thomas is the latest casualty demanding an immediate intervention from the international community.

The activities of armed militias sponsored by the Yaoundé regime and the Cameroon government army soldiers have caused aid and medical practitioners offering treatment and care to discontinue services in the entire Southern Cameroons rural areas.

Hundreds of Southern Cameroons prisoners of conscience detained in French Cameroun jails in Yaoundé, the Littoral and the West Region have been left with no option but to die. And this is just a mild example illustrating that the Biya Francophone regime is silently slaughtering Southern Cameroons prisoners of conscience

Biya and his ruling CPDM gang have repeatedly denied that the war in Southern Cameroons is hampering the supply of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods to Southern Cameroons civilians.

By Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap

The Southern Cameroons Defense Secretary has said that Ambazonia Restoration Forces have been given directives in Ground Zero to avenge the blood of top Southern Cameroons prisoner of conscience Tangem Thomas who passed to eternity today at the Yaoundé Central Hospital handcuffed on a hospital bed. The Ambazonia Defense Secretary whose name we are withholding also indicated that Southern Cameroonians will continue Tangem Thomas’s path until the liberation of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Also speaking during today’s emergency meeting summoned by the Ambazonia Interim Government to discuss the current situation of Southern Cameroons detainees in French Cameroun, Vice President Yerima noted that the enemies of the Ambazonian people wrongly believe that the martyrdom of great Southern Cameroonians like engineer Tangem Thomas would grind the Southern Cameroons resistance to a halt, but the realities of the past four years have shown otherwise.

Vice President Yerima furthered that martyrdom is in fact the driving force behind the Ambazonia resistance and self defense agenda.

Both the Vice President and the Defense Secretary read from the same script echoing revenge for French Cameroun’s killing of Tangem Thomas and stating that Southern Cameroonians will also continue the sacred path of Tangem Thomas until they get to Buea.

The Ambazonia Defense Secretary observed that “avenging Tangem Thomas’s blood has turned into an ideal and the Ambazonia Interim Government will be pursuing the ideals”.

By Chi Prudence Asong