Turkish authorities wrapped 47-year-old man in a plastic wrapping before sending him on a flight to his country of origin, Cameroon, France 24 news site reported on Saturday.

Video footage of Emmanuel Fosso Someon Chedjou being treated as luggage by the airline’s officials ahead of Turkish Airlines TK667 flight on Jan. 27, have sparked outrage in Cameroon, it said.

The details of the videos show Chedjou being handcuffed with black plastic straps at the wrists and the ankles. Authorities also wrapped scotch tape on his clothes.

 Chedjou said that he was on a business trip to Dubai to buy a stock of shoes and meant to step out of the Istanbul Airport to get some air during an eight-hour layover. Authorities at passport control said his transit visa was fake and immediately arrested him.

Chedjou said that he had paid a travel agency to arrange everything and it was only then he realized that he had been ripped off.

“I was taken to a sort of detention centre and I found my partner there, who had been arrested in the meantime,” the man said.

The authorities asked him to sign documents in Turkish, which he couldn’t read, and also refused his request for a lawyer.

Chedjou said that the officers continued to mistreat him (including beating) and wrapped him in rolls of plastic normally used for suitcases.  Once they put him inside the plane “like a package,” Chedjou managed to spit out some tissue that they had stuffed into his mouth and cry out for help.

The other passengers protested his mistreatment, and his partner took videos as a form of evidence. Authorities also confiscated $2400 from his pockets, Chedjou said, and said he was lucky to be alive.

Source: ahvalnew

A bunch of hungry and remote-controlled Cameroonians are currently in front of the French embassy, thereby blocking roads and disrupting public order, just to express their frustration with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who on Saturday told the plain truth that it was thanks to his pressure that Professor Maurice Kamto was released.

The French president also expressed his indignation with the Yaounde dictator who has resorted to killing his own people as a way of perpetuating himself in power.

The French president had to express his frustration when questioned by a Cameroonian activist who called on the French president to help end the killings in Southern Cameroons.

The French president said he was aware of the Ngarbuh massacre, adding that he was totally aware of what was playing out in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

He indirectly confirmed the activist’s figures of 12,000 deaths due to the conflict that has pitted the moribund Yaounde government against its English-speaking minority.

The crowd in front of the French embassy comprises mostly unemployed Cameroonians hastily rushed to the venue of the demonstration by the higher education minister, Jacques Fame Ndongo, and defense minister, Joseph Beti Assomo, who are tribesmen of the dying 87-year-old Paul Biya who has made tribalism and nepotism the hallmarks of his corrupt regime.

After enormous pressure from the United States Administration which has threatened to directly intervene in Cameroon, the French government has decided to throw up Paul Biya who has become more of a lightning rod for controversy and an international embarrassment.

Meanwhile, as the pressure mounts on the government, officials of the regime have started using threats against staff of international organizations who simply want to do their job.

It has been reported that a UN official has fled  Cameroon after receiving threats from the country’s territorial administration minister, Paul Atanga Nji.

The UNOCHA representative in the Northwest region, Jack Andrew Pendleton, has fled Cameroon following threats from the crude and ruthless territorial administration minister.

Mr. Pendleton who left Cameroon yesterday night, had gone into hiding since last Thursday after he received a call from Paul Atanga Nji following comments he made to the media after his visit to Ngarbuh where over 30 women and children had been killed on February 14 by the country’s army.

After his visit to Ngarbuh, Mr. Pendleton and the UN team discovered that the number of deaths stated by the government was much higher. The findings were buttressed by testimonies from IDPs that the military was behind the heinous crimes.

The UN official with over 37 years of experience in humanitarian affairs was not impressed by the situation and spoke out his mind to the local press after the visit to the scene of the crime.

This eventually led to the government of Cameroon going after him. He received threats from the governor of the Northwest region, Adolphe Lele L’Afrique, and the territorial administration boss, Paul Atanga Nji.

Security operatives were also sent to his residence on many occasions, thereby violating his diplomatic immunity.

This led to his decision to escape before the country’s secret service could lay hands on him. But before his escape last night, he brieved the United States ambassador to Cameroon on the situation last Friday.

More on this story will be yours as we get more details.

By Francis Ashu in Yaounde

As the Cameroon government continues to be on the defensive about the Ngarbuh massacres, the global human rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW), has already completed its investigations and it is clearly pointing a finger to the country’s military as the guilty party.

Speaking on TV5 Monde on Sunday, a HRW researcher, Ilaria Allegrozzi, said that there had not been any confrontation between the military and Ambazonia fighters on Valentine’s day in Ngarbuh.

The HRW expert added that there was no explosion as claimed by government, stressing that the rights watchdog’s figures showed that 21 people had been killed which is  far from the 5 claimed by the Yaounde government.

The expert pointed out that the massacre was the government’s decision to punish villagers, claiming that they were hiding Ambazonian fighters in their houses.

The HRW findings tie in well with those released by civil society organizations and the  UN.

Meanwhile, the government has sent its troops to Ngarbuh to investigate the massacre and this move comes after the international community expressed shock that a government was killing its own citizens.

The general consensus in the country is that the government is not credible and that it will continue to cover up, as that had been its modus operandi for decades.

Across the country, many people are calling for Cameroonian leaders to be taken to The Hague where they should be tried for crimes against humanity.

Those considered responsible for the massacres in the country’s two English-speaking regions include: Paul Atanga Nji, Rene Sadi, Joseph Beti Assomo, Fame Ndongo and the governors of the two English-speaking regions of the country.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The country’s military is currently heading to Ngarbuh, the little village in the Northwest region where over 30 people were slaughtered by the country’s military and militiamen set up by the country’s defense minister, Joseph Beti Assomo, and territorial administration minister, Paul Atanga Nji.

The international community had called for a partial and thorough investigation, but no international team has been set up to help with the investigations.

On the contrary, the country’s president, Paul Biya, who is under enormous international pressure, has ordered an investigation into the killings although he already knows who committed the crime.

Cameroon Concord News Group’s correspondent in the Northwest regional capital of Bamenda has indicated that there is an unusual troop movement towards Ngarbuh.

This comes a day after the French President, Emmanuel Macron, said that he would mount pressure on President Paul Biya and his fragile and old government for the issue to be investigated.

An anonymous source which contacted Cameroon Concord News Group confirmed in an SMS that there was a lot of pressure in the corridors of power.

The source added that “a Gendarmerie team has been dispatched from Yaounde to Ngarbuh to investigate the Valentine’s Day Massacre in Ngarbuh.”

The Source stressed that “They leave for Ntumbaw on Monday or Tuesday. Part of their mission is to exhume the corpses laid to rest and count them. They have an order that the number of corpses must not be more than seven. Those innocent victims have been laid to rest and are currently resting in peace, but for political reasons, their graves will be desecrated early next week by government forces which want to present the government’s story to the international community.”

The source questioned the objectivity of the process, adding that no truth will emerge from such an investigation, as a thief is being asked to investigate himself.

There will be a lot of cover up, as the government will do all in its powers to hide the truth, another source that elected anonymity said.

While the world looks forward to the truth, many people are sceptical about the government’s sincerity concerning these investigations.

It should be pointed out that ever since information of the massacre emerged on social media, the Yaounde government has offered multiple explanations for the incident.

While the defense minister said those killed by the military were simply collateral damage and that the fire was due to fuel that was stored in those homes, the communication minister, Rene Sadi, came out with his own version that clearly smacked of arrogance, denial and provocation.

He clearly exonerated the military, insulting those who said the military was to blame for the massacre of children and pregnant women.

The sending of Cameroon’s military to the crime site is a good beginning, but the international community must set up a team to support any efforts made by the Yaounde government so that the truth can be known.

It should also be emphasized that there are a few people in the village keeping shell casings of the bullets that were fired. Those people should be contacted by UN experts on the ground in Bamenda.

With ballestic analyses, it will be possible to determine the killers of the innocent citizens in Ngarbuh who had nothing to do with the civil war that is tearing the country apart.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and 8 of his senior aides arrested at the Nera Hotel in Abuja on January 5, 2018 and serving a life sentence at the Yaoundé Principal Prison have distanced themselves from Tassang Wilfred, following his ill disguised attempt at dragging the Federal Republic of Ambazonia into French Cameroun politics.

Tassang who developed a phobia for the Southern Cameroons leadership after the 3rd Conclave in Nigeria reportedly wrote an open letter  to Prof. Maurice Kamto, President of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement painting him “This lying Professor is worse than Paul Biya. Avoid him.“

In an official Ambazonia Interim Government message dated February 18, 2020, the jailed Southern Cameroons leaders opined that  Tassang’s views were in no way a reflection of the political discourse that was held in Kondengui involving Professor Kamto and the Ambazonia leadership.

President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, Nfor Ngala Nfor, Barrister Shufai Blaise Sevidzem Berinyuy, Barrister Eyambe Elias Ebai, Dr. Fidelis Ndeh Che, Dr Egbe Ntui Ogork, Dr. Cornelius Njikimbi Kwanga, Dr. Kimeng Henry Tata and Prof. Cheh Augustine Awasum noted in their disclaimer addressed to Kamto that: “We read with some consternation an open letter allegedly from Mr. Tassang Wilfred writing from Prison Principale Yaounde early last week, in which he cast aspersions on the person and character of the President of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, Prof. Maurice Kamto.

“We, members of the Ambazonian leadership in detention write to distance ourselves from that write up. The views expressed by Mr. Tassang are in no way a reflection of what we stand for. We have the utmost respect for Prof Kamto as a person and as a leader of the main opposition party in La Republique du Cameroun.

“We remain committed to an independent and sovereign Southern Cameroons recognized under international laws based on UN resolutions 1514 and 1608. We add our voice to growing calls from the international community for a mediated dialogue between La Republique du Cameroun and Southern Cameroons in a neutral territory.

”What Tassang said of Kamto

“Maurice Kamto, Chairman of the CRM party, unfortunate candidate of the 2018 presidential elections of LRC and former inmate of the Prison Principale Kondengui, Yaoundé, is known as one of the best legal minds of his country, and well celebrated around the world and within UN circles for the sharpness of his wit. “For a reminder, this learned professor led LRC’s legal representation in the case pitting Nigeria and the former over the Bakassi Peninsula at the ICJ.

Cameroun’s victory over Nigeria was largely attributed to him. Little wonder that he was rewarded with a junior ministerial portfolio at the Ministry of Justice after that feat. “It is also said to his credit that it was under his watch that plans were made to decimate the Common Law system in Cameroun, seeing for a start, the flooding of the two regions with francophone huissiers de justice, or bailiffs, which functions are carried out in our territory by lawyers. “One would expect that this Professor of Law would be the first to cry foul when the law, local or international, is rubbished by the Yaoundé junta he wants to unseat.

Shockingly, Prof. Kamto who is well schooled on the history of the Cameroons and is an authority of international law, will not accept the truth about the history of the Southern Cameroons, neither will he acknowledge the international right to self-determination granted every people. Is there anything professorial in any man who cannot face the truth, and uphold it? “48 hours after their release from Kondengui, the professor’s partner and ally, Albert Dzongang, declared on TV that the best thing that happened to them in prison was that they established a rapprochement with the Ambazonian leadership in jail, whatever that meant.

Could there have been a rapprochement if the two parties didn’t meet and talk? Is it not therefore very unprofessorial that Kamto would declare that he and his team never discussed with the Ambazonian leaders in detention? Why will he lie? “For the records, the professor lied. I bring this clarification so that those Ambazonians who are falling head over heels to be received by him in the diaspora may know that this man is to be avoided like a flea.

It was at the Professor’s request and insistence that a team of four, led by Sisiku Julius AyukTabe met with his own team. I don’t know why the man of law will lie, but this singular action confirms what Sisiku had told him and his men earlier; you all are like Paul Biya, that is, if anyone was in doubt of that. “My opinion about PhDs and Professors who cannot uphold the truth, and especially when they are professors of law, is that they are not worth one Amba coin.

“Concerning LRC’s Wonderboy, I tell you Ambazonia, run away from him. We have not been able to get Chairman Fru Ndi to endorse the restoration quest, how think us that we can do so with a Kamto? The man doesn’t even flatter us, he doesn’t think we are worth humouring. “What does Kamto want from Ambazonia? That we support him unseat Paul Biya so that he can, in turn, further enshrine our servitude, or if you will, special slave status. “If with their little education, Ahidjo, and then Paul Biya could reduce us to this, how much more will this most witted professor of Law accomplish? Not that our case has flaws; there is no loophole in the truth.

“For the icing on the cake, one of ours who visited us in jail here was ready to tell us and in the presence of the horse, Albert Dzongang, that this brother and political ally of Kamto’s requested on live TV broadcast that the Yaoundé junta should kill us, (Sisiku AyukTabe and his nine brothers being secretly detained at SED at the time). “These are not the kind of people we can fool around with in the name of seeking for sympathisers. Of course we will negotiate with Kamto if he becomes leader of LRC tomorrow, but we should not deceive ourselves; Kamto will be a more formidable adversary than Paul Biya. “This lying Professor is worse than Paul Biya. Avoid him.”

By Rita Akana with files from CIN

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is disturbed by news of the killing of a beneficiary by military men at the site of a food distribution near Ekona, in the South West Region of Cameroon.

“Our sympathies and condolences are with the bereaved family,” said WFP West Africa Regional Director Chris Nikoi, “and we condemn the breach of humanitarian space by armed groups and security forces in the crisis affecting the South West and North West regions of Cameroon.”

“We strongly urge respect of humanitarian operations and the protection of civilians by all parties,” Nikoi said.

Violent clashes between armed groups and security forces in the two regions of Cameroon have led to displacement, leaving tens of thousands of people in need of humanitarian assistance.

Four senior UN officials issued a joint statement on Friday deploring the continued human rights abuses committed against civilians, including women and children, in the south-west and north-west regions of Cameroon.

“We are deeply concerned about reports of violence, including the 14 February attack on Ngarbuh village in the Northwest region that left 23 civilians dead, including 15 children”, they said.

The UN officials sounding the alarm were: Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba; Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten; Special Representative on Violence against Children Najat Maalla M’jid; and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng,

They deplored reports of continued attacks against civilians, including extra-judicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests and destruction of property, as well as retaliatory attacks, rape and other forms of sexual violence that disproportionately affect women and children in the north- and south-west regions of the country that are forcing many to flee their homes.

“Children continue to be particularly affected by the crisis”, they lamented.

Citing reports of school attacks and extensive closures in the affected regions, they said that “thousands of children out of school”.

The senior UN officials added that information received on the recruitment and use of children by armed actors and their detention for actual or alleged association with armed actors “raise further protection concerns.”

Moreover, hundreds of thousands of people are reported to have been displaced in the affected regions, with a lack of security further exacerbating the plight of marginalized and vulnerable groups.

“It is urgent to prevent further violence and to protect all women, girls, boys and men from grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law”, they continued.

“Severely constrained humanitarian access and limited resources for service-providers has reduced the availability of sexual and reproductive healthcare for women, including urgent treatment for survivors of sexual violence”.

Government call

The four senior officials called on the Cameroonian Government to discharge its primary responsibility in protecting the population by addressing the root causes of violence and ensuring that victims of the attacks are provided with protection and the appropriate assistance.

They further called on the authorities to fully investigate and hold accountable those responsible for the serious violations and abuses that have been committed.

“We urge the Government of Cameroon to ensure full respect for human rights, including the rights of women and children, and to ensure that the humanitarian needs of civilians are met”, the UN officials said.

In closing, they reminded the Government that “children associated with armed groups should be considered primarily as victims and their detention used only as a last resort and for the shortest period of time”.

“We also emphasize that all forms of sexual violence are categorically prohibited under international humanitarian and human rights law”, the four UN officials concluded.

They offered UN support and assistance to the Cameroon authorities to address the situation and improve protection and service-delivery for civilians in affected areas, and for those who have been forcibly displaced.

Source: News.un

The whole world has been holding France responsible for the killings in Southern Cameroons, but the Macron government is sick and tired of supporting an uncompromising, corrupt and inefficient Yaounde government that is hell bent on killing its own people.

French President, Emmanuel Macron is tired of being accused of aiding and abetting dictators in Africa.

In a public discussion with a Cameroonian activist, Calibri Calibro, last week in Paris following the brutal killing of more than 30 people in Ngarbur in the country’s northwest region, Mr. Macron said he had put a lot of pressure on the beleaguered Cameroon leader, Paul Biya, for him to seek a peaceful and long-lasting solution to the crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.

“I have been putting pressure on President Paul Biya to deal with the issue of the English-speaking regions of Cameroon and his opponents.  I told him that I would not receive him in Lyon until Maurice KAMTO was released.  And he was released because we put pressure on the government.  But the situation continues to deteriorate,” Macron said.

“I will call President Biya next week and I will put maximum pressure on him to end this situation.  I am fully aware of the violence in Cameroon which is intolerable.  I am doing my maximum best,” he stressed.

“France is still caught in a complicated game in Africa.  We are a state of law and we defend the rule of law everywhere.  But when in Africa, a French president says that this leader is not democratically elected, Africans always say, why are you getting into our affairs? You have no lessons to give us,” he pointed out.

“Everywhere, I want democratically elected leaders and where the presidents are not democratically elected, I will work with the civil society.  I work with the African Union and international organizations to put pressure on those governments,” he said

“When President Joseph Kabila, DRC’s former president, was in power, there were opposition figures like you in that country.  We put pressure on the government.  We worked with several other presidents and we managed to get political alternation in the country which led to President Tshisekedi taking over power,” he revealed.

“Regarding President Paul Biya, I have told him that he must open up the system. He must decentralize.  He must liberate political opponents.  He must uphold the rule of law.  I will do everything in my power to ensure the issues are addressed.  I really want you to know that it is not for France to institute democracy in Cameroon. Cameroonians must bring about democracy in their own country,” he concluded.

But not many people around the world have faith in the French president who has been quiet ever since Mr. Biya started slaughtering English-speaking Cameroonians in 2016.

It should be recalled that in 2019 during a European Union session, France was the only European Union country that stood by Cameroon and its corrupt government while other European Union countries called on the beleaguered government to address the issues that had triggered the violence in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

By Staff man Francis Ashu

New Boko Haram attacks have displaced more than 3,000 people along Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria in the past three months. Authorities say the Nigerian Islamist militants torched houses, abducted, raped and looted, creating panic among villagers.

Twenty-seven-year-old Cameroonian Alidda Mannodi is getting help from the Association of Muslim Women in the northern town of Mora, on Nigeria’s border, after escaping from Boko Haram.    

Last week, she managed to flee the border village of Touski, where the Islamist militants were holding her captive as a sex slave.    

She said at the first opportunity she fled a hut in the bush, where she was repeatedly raped by several men.  Mannodi said she told one of the men that she was menstruating, but the man still raped her.

Mannodi said she trekked for three hours before getting help from a Nigerian fuel vendor, who brought her to Mora.  She said she was among 12 people Boko Haram abducted from her village – some for a second time.    

The Association of Muslim Women is treating her and 16 other women who escaped Boko Haram in recent months.    

Cameroon’s military said the Islamist militants have in the past three months stepped up raids on villages along the border.    

Midjiyawa Bakari, the governor of Cameroon’s far north region, said the terrorists cross over from Nigeria in groups of 10 to 20, torch houses, abduct civilians, and steal livestock and grain.  

He asked villagers to help inform Cameroon security forces of attacks.      

“We have to call upon the population to help to bring information, to work hand-in-hand with forces of law and civil authorities and, by that way, it is obvious that the results will be there,” he said.

Bakari said the wave of attacks is a consequence of a porous border and the dry season, during which it is easier for militants to move around than it is during the wet season.    

He denied the attacks were made worse by the military withdrawing from several border posts to fight rebels in the English-speaking northwest.

United Nations officials, including the U.N. coordinator in Cameroon, Allegra Baiocchi, have been visiting camps to which thousands of people were displaced by the Boko Haram attacks this month.  

Baiocchi said they are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

“We saw over 3,000 people in the area of Mora and Kourghi. So, we talked about the needs of these people, which are humanitarian needs.   We talked about how we are trying to help them. But we also talked about the importance of making sure that we help these populations regain their livelihoods,” said Baiocchi.

Neither the United Nations nor the government of Cameroon gave an estimate of the number of people killed or wounded in the attacks.  

The local tabloid L’Oeil  Du Sahel, which specializes in reporting on Boko Haram, estimates at least 90 people have been killed since mid-November.    

Boko Haram terrorists have been fighting for the past 11 years to create an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria’s northeast, but the attacks have spread to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.      

When the fighting reached Cameroon in 2014, President Paul Biya declared war on the militants.    

The Islamist group has killed more than 36,000 people, displaced over 2 million, and left more than 7 million in need of humanitarian aid.

Source: VOA    

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, released his statement on 17 February, saying that he is “deeply concerned over reports about the killing of civilians, including children, in an attack on the village of Ngarbuh”.

A day later, the spokesperson of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights equally decried the killings as “a shocking episode” in what is an “ongoing crisis that has afflicted the country’s North-West and South-West regions for the past three years”.

23 killed, 15 of them children

The “ongoing crisis” referred to is the clashes between security and defence forces and armed separatist groups in these two regions, clashes which have displaced hundreds of thousands of people over the last years.

The UN reported witness accounts saying that 40 armed men opened fire on people and burnt down houses in the village of Ngarbuh on 14 February. Some of the men involved in the killings were members of the security and defence forces. According to Cameroonian authorities, the defence forces and gendarmes responded to fire from inside the village.

UN sources on the ground reported that 23 people were killed, 15 of whom were children and two of whom were pregnant women.

“Respect international human rights law”

The UN Secretary General offered his “deepest condolences” to the families of the victims, and called upon the Government of Cameroon to investigate the attacks and to “make sure those responsible are held accountable”.

After the Cameroon Government announced that they would open an investigation, the Office of the High Commissioner urged the authorities to ensure that it be “independent, impartial and thorough”.

Both the Secretary General and the Human Rights Office called on all armed actors in the conflict to refrain from attacking civilians and to respect international human rights law.

“We urge the Government of Cameroon to take concrete steps” the Human Rights Office said and reiterated their “readiness to help the Government to protect the human rights of people all across Cameroon”.

Pleas of the international community

The UN statements are just the latest of many appeals from the international community, many of them from ecclesiastical communities around the world.

Earlier this week, Catholic Bishops from around the world signed a letter to the President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, asking him to begin peace negotiations with the separatist movement.

The World Council of Churches also condemned the attacks, and encouraged all its member churches to keep those affected in their prayers.

Source: Vatican News