Cameroonian journalists are marking World Press Freedom Day with protests against abuse from the government as well as from rebels fighting for an independent English-speaking state. Reporters Without Borders, in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index, ranks Cameroon 134th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. Some Cameroonian journalists have been detained for their reporting or are on the run from the military or separatists.

This message from the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists, that journalism has rules, regulations and professional ethics, is broadcast on television and radio, and shared on social media platforms by journalists in Cameroon as a sign of protest against the abuses they face. The message insists that journalists be allowed freedom to practice.

“We say no to the constant harassment and haphazard arrest of journalists in their line of duties,” the message said.

Journalists did not organize popular celebrations and public protests as in the previous years because of the more than 2,000 cases of COVID-19 in Cameroon.

They said, however, they shared the pain of peers who have been in detention, such as Mancho Bibixy and Tsi Conrad, arrested and charged with insurrection against the state of Cameroon and who have been in detention since 2017, Samuel Wazizi arrested late last year and jailed for alleged collaboration with separatist fighters, and Wawa Jackson, who was arrested in 2019 and accused of propagating the secessionists’ agenda in the English-speaking regions where separatists are fighting to break away from the majority French-speaking country.

Ngah Christian Mbipgo, publisher of Cameroon’s lone English-language daily newspaper, the Guardian Post, said his news organ has been the victim of press abuses while covering the separatist crisis that has killed 3,000 people in Cameroon in the past three years. He said 15 of his reporters, newspaper vendors and their family members have fled from hostile areas in the English-speaking North-West and South-West regions.

“The separatists think that we have not been doing much to project their independence ideology, and that is why our reporters in the field are targeted. I have not gone out of Yaoundé [to the English-speaking North-West and South-West regions] since 2017 that [when] the crisis metamorphosed into an armed conflict because they have openly called to tell me that I am a target. We receive calls from top government officials who say we are a newspaper that is working for the separatists,” he said.

Cameroon’s government did not issue a statement on for World Press Freedom Day, as there were no public ceremonies due to COVID-19. However, the government has always maintained that there is press freedom in Cameroon and journalists are only arrested when they act unprofessionally.

Jude Viban, president of the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists said the government should decriminalize media offenses and make sure abuses against the rights of journalists by government officials and separatist fighters are stopped.

“What we are doing is to inform, and we do so for the interest of the population, so a handful of people should not attack the press. When stories are not told because journalists are under attack, the population would not be informed, which, of course, is their right to be informed in a democracy like ours,” said Viban.

Reporters Without Borders says press freedom continues its long decline in Cameroon, and reporters continue to be subjected to threats, attacks, intimidation and arrests after President Paul Biya’s reelection for a seventh term in October 2018.

Source: VOA

A separatist commander known simply as General Alhaji was among some insurgents who were killed on Friday in Bafut, a locality in Northwest, one of the two troubled Anglophone regions of Cameroon, the Cameroon army said Saturday.

The death of Alhaji was confirmed by Kingsley Ashu, a separatist leader, in a Facebook post.

He was killed after a week-long military offensive in the locality that also witnessed the seizure of war weapons and dismantling of several separatist camps, local authorities said.

Alhaji was commanding one of the “largest and fiercest” armed separatist groups known as “Seven Katta Bafut Defence forces” in the region, according to security reports.

He became “notorious” in 2018 after kidnapping over 80 school children and teachers and a driver of a secondary school in Bamenda, Cameroon Anglophone’s largest city, security sources said, adding that his physical elimination could prove a major blow to the rebels in that region.

Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from the majority French-speaking nation and form a new country which they call “Ambazonia.”

Source: Xinhuanet

A political group from Yaoundé and a sea of French Cameroun army soldiers posing as bike riders heavily funded by French Cameroun’s Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji have organized a raucous rally in Bamenda, the chief city in the Northern Zone of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia calling on the occupying Biya regime to reform bike laws in the Mezam County. The participants did wear protective masks not as an anti COVID-19 gesture but to hide their identities from Ambazonia Restoration Forces. The Atanga Nji militia men did not observe social distancing recommendations.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered from a well-placed source in Yaoundé that the protest was organized and funded by the French Cameroun Minister of Territorial Administration with many of the participants transported to Bamenda from French Cameroun’s West Region.

Despite Mezam County having the highest number of French Cameroun military operations in recent times, along with nearly 98 deaths in Bafut, French Cameroun surrogate, Minister Paul Atanga Nji reportedly fighting for his political survival sponsored the Bamenda demonstration to give the impression that the Mezam County was now under the control of the Francophone dominated army.  

One of the participants who spoke to our correspondent claimed Minister Atanga Nji did not sponsor the demonstration but that it was financed from Yaoundé.

The Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima is expected to chair a town hall meeting in the coming days to redirect the Southern Cameroons struggle to self defense.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Frédéric  Nguiema Nzie a Sub-Lieutenant of the French Cameroun army recently assigned to head an operation with the Rapid Intervention Battalion (RIB) has been killed by Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Mamfe, the chief town in the Manyu County.

Sub-Lieutenant Frédéric Jeunesse Nguiema Nzie, enlisted in the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), and deployed as part of the 6^th Division died on April 28, 2020 during an operation around the residence of the Senior Divisional Officer for Manyu.

French Cameroun media reported that he served the Biya regime only for four months and made what Yaoundé described as the supreme sacrifice.

The young soldier from La Republique du Cameroun was a laureate of the 37th badge of EMIA named after Major General Jacob KODJI who including 181 others graduated on January 24^th in a ceremony that was chaired by the French Cameroun monarch Paul Biya. He hailed from Kribi in the Ocean constituency in French Cameroun.

Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap in Glasgow with files from CIN

Armed groups are fighting for a separate state in English-speaking parts of Cameroon and government forces are hitting back with brute force.

Caught in the crossfire, civilians are trying to stay alive in a deadly conflict the world knows little about.

In 2016, as lawyers, students and teachers in the English-speaking parts of Cameroon began protesting what they saw as their cultural marginalisation and under-representation in the central government, security forces hit back.

Several armed separatist groups emerged and self-declared their independence from Cameroon on October 1, 2017, calling their new country “Ambazonia”. Members of armed groups are known to locals as “the boys”.

Since then, atrocities have been committed by both sides and the escalating conflict has forced more than 730,000 people to flee. Many have been killed, tortured, raped, assaulted and kidnapped. Those who manage to survive watched helplessly as their villages burned to the ground and their children were left with no access to school.

Because of fears of repercussions if caught speaking out, the voices of those affected are rarely heard. In addition, there is limited access available for independent journalists to report on the crisis.

The lack of international attention, support and diplomacy have left Cameroon a neglected crisis with no end in sight for more than one million people in need.

• Source Aljazeera

The wife of a former French Cameroun Minister of Defence, Bernadette Mebe Ngo’o who has been in prison since the 11^th of March 2019 alongside her husband, Edgar Alain Mebo Ngo’o for complicity in a case of alleged embezzlement of public funds in the purchase of military equipment for the French Cameroun army, was rushed to intensive care on Saturday, 25^th of April 2020, at the Yaoundé Emergency Centre. 

Bernadette Mebe Ngo’o was reportedly taken from her detention cell in Ward 5 of the Yaounde-Kondengui Central Prison and nothing has so far filtered about the woman who was prominent in French Cameroun some few years ago.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that Bernadette Minja Nkoulou (to use her name at birth) has suffered several minor heart attacks in recent months and has been abandoned by the ruling CPDM female mafia known as the Circle of Friends of Cameroun (CERAC), founded by the First Lady, Mrs. Chantal Biya.

By Asu Isong in London

Three government officials were abducted Friday night in Boyo division of Northwest, one of the two troubled Anglophone regions of Cameroon, local authorities said Saturday.

A Court registrar of Boyo High Court, an official of election management body Elections Cameroon (Elecam), and a municipal councillor of ruling Cameroon’s People Democratic Movement (CPDM), were kidnapped by gunmen “as they were going about their normal activities”, according to security sources who asked not to be named.

Local police said a search and rescue mission of the hostages is underway.

Armed separatists have intensified attacks on officials who participated in Feb. 9 legislative and municipal elections in Cameroon, saying they disrespected their order to boycott the elections, according to media reports.

Since 2017, armed separatists have been fighting to create an independent nation in the two Anglophone regions of the largely French-speaking Cameroon.

Source: Xinhuanet

Thousands of Cameroonian prisoners have effectively regained their freedom, as ordered by the central African state’s President Paul Biya, after his government reported that the coronavirus pandemic was spreading and inmates were among the groups with the highest level of exposure. The government has, however, not provided the number of infected inmates but says more than 1,500 people have been tested COVID-19 positive in Cameroon  in less than two months, with over 50 deaths. 

Speaking via a messaging application from Cameroon’s English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda Henry Asaah Ngu, superintendent of the Bamenda Central prison says the 138 inmates who have regained their freedom were all tested COVID-19-free. He says their departure makes it possible for prison staff to ensure that compliance with principles of hygiene is effective to check the spread of the coronavirus. 

“With this release, we will be able to apply very strictly that aspect of social distancing even within the prison,” he said.

The Bamenda Central Prison has 403 officially declared inmates. Cameroon has 78 overcrowded prisons, with 30,000 prisoners in detention facilities constructed for a maximum of 9.000 inmates.  

Among the 1,400 who have regained their freedom from the Bamenda, Bafoussam, Bertoua and Buea central prisons is Emmanuel Ngomba. He says he was arrested two years ago, at 16, and held at the Buea Central Prison.

“I left the house one evening to go and see a friend. He said he wanted us to go and take some things from his uncle’s shop. We went there, took some gas bottles and engine oil. They [the police] caught me. Prison is not a good place,” he said.

Ngumba, who spoke via a messaging application, said his rights were abused because he was accused of theft and detained in prison for two years without trial. 

Fifty-two-year-old Pierre Tchamba also regained his freedom after more than two dozen years in the Bertoua prison, where he was given a life sentence for voluntary manslaughter and aggravated theft. 

Tchamba says after 24 years and four months of detention in inhumane conditions, he has finally regained his freedom thanks to COVID-19, which has been spreading in Cameroon and infecting inmates.  

A crisis meeting chaired by Cameroonian Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute last week announced that COVID-19 was a threat in Cameroon prisons but did not say how many inmates had been contaminated or have died from the pandemic. 

On April 15, President Biya ordered the release of thousands of prisoners over concerns about congested facilities spreading the coronavirus. Under the presidential decision, life sentences were reduced to 25 years and those for whom life sentences had been reduced to 25 years had five years taken off their sentences. Ten-year sentences were cut by three years, five-year sentences reduced by two years and three-year sentences cut by one year.  

However, separatists fighting for an independent English-speaking state in the central African nation and officials jailed for corruption were excluded. 

Source: VOA

Southern Cameroons Secretary of the Economy, Comrade Tabenyang Brado has reportedly chaired a process to reconcile all of Manyu self defense groups and donors to the Ambazonia struggle and quest for an independent state, taking a more hands-on approach to solving the main problem.

In a heavily attended Manyu Town Hall Meeting that held yesterday Sunday the 26^th of April 2020, Tabenyang Brado including a cream of senior Manyu citizens and the Chairman of the Manyu County Sesekou Dr Ako Peter explained to Manyus that there was an urgent need to maintain only defense structures during these difficult times.

The Ambazonia Economy Secretary supported by prominent Manyu titles holders had attempted late last week to resolve a serious issue that saw Manyu Restoration Forces fighting among themselves in the Mamfe Local Government Area.  However, yesterday’s meeting made huge efforts to end the Manyu rift and a real pact has been sealed with the outcome of the talks described by many as positive.

A high-ranking source in the Southern Cameroons intelligence who attended the Manyu Town Hall Meeting told Cameroon Intelligence Report on condition of anonymity that the new Manyu Self Defense plan as designed by the organizers of the town hall is more structured than previous ones. The new Manyu vision focuses on completing the liberation of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia step by step and guaranteeing the security of every Southern Cameroonian in Ground Zero.

Cameroon Concord News Group London Bureau Chief Asu Isong said all stakeholders agreed to the new vision and all were positive. We understand the Ambazonian leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has expressed his sincere gratitude to all his fellow Manyu Community members for putting the struggle first with their new commitment to support and assist the suffering people on Ground Zero and Ground 1.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in Dublin

Alfred Forgwei Mbeng is now resting in peace in a cemetery in Douala. The General Manager of the Cameroon Shipyard and Industrial Company known as Chantier Naval was buried in the French Cameroun metropolis early this Sunday morning the 26^th of April 2020.

The Southern Cameroons civil engineer died on April 25, 2020 at the Laquintinie Hospital in Douala as a result of the coronavirus. He reportedly self isolated at his home when it was confirmed that he had contracted the virus, but was later moved to the Laquintinie hospital after his health condition worsened.

A former official of the Ministry of Public Works, Forgwei Mbeng was also a chartered member of the French Cameroun ruling CPDM crime syndicate who supported the Biya regime’s genocidal campaign in his home county of Bui in Northern Ambazonia.

He had been at the head of Chantier Naval since 2014. He is the first prominent French Cameroun government official to give up his life, struck down by COVID-19.

By Fon Lawrence in Douala