The Humanitarian Coordinator in Cameroon, Ms. Allegra Baiocchi, strongly condemns the killing of an aid worker in north-west Cameroon. “I am deeply saddened by the news of the horrific execution of an aid worker last night. On behalf of the United Nations and the wider humanitarian community, our deepest condolences go to his family, friends and colleagues,” said Ms. Baiocchi.

On 30 November, Mr. Pascal Ngwayi, of COMINSUD, a local NGO and UN partner, was abducted and later killed by armed men in Donga Mantung Division of the North West Region. At the time of his abduction, Mr. Ngwayi was carrying out a humanitarian assessment to ensure people in need received timely and appropriate support. “Humanitarian workers risk everything to provide aid to people most in need. They must be respected and protected, not targeted. The continued attacks on aid workers only increase the suffering of civilians, as we are unable to safely carry out operations,” added Ms. Baiocchi.

The deliberate targeting of aid and aid workers constitutes a war crime. The United Nations renews the call for all armed actors to ensure the protection of aid workers, to fully uphold international human rights and humanitarian law and to respect the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, independence and impartiality.

In the North West and South West regions of Cameroon, the humanitarian community is working to bring lifesaving assistance to the most vulnerable people, in line with the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan.

Southern Cameroonian fighters have fired at a Camairco plane in Bamenda, as the airliner was about to land at the Bamenda airport.

The airliner, which has been grounded in Bamenda, took some bullets and will not be flying for sometime.

The incident that occurred today December 1st 2109 is a clear indication that the Southern Cameroons crisis is far from over despite the optimism generated by the Major National Dialogue held in Yaounde in October 2019.

Camairco is now among other state corporations which have been affected by the crisis.

PAMOL, CDC, and SONARA have been hit hard by the crisis and this is a severe blow to the cash-strapped Yaounde government that is still hoping that time will help solve a problem that has become a millstone around its neck.

Since the commencement of the crisis, the government of Cameroon has lost more than USD 50 billion due to the war and the country’s economy is in a free fall.

Unemployment has reached unbearable levels and insecurity is heading for the sky, especially in Yaounde and Douala which are the country’s most economically active cities.

According to a source at the Unity Palace, government officials are really concerned by the declining economy and they fear that the country’s increasing isolation at the international level may make things worse.

The source, which elected anonymity, said that there was fear among government officials, especially those who still hold that the government should not negotiate with Southern Cameroonians because in their view, negotiating with people who have taken up weapons against their country will be like promoting terrorism.

As the economy continues its race to the bottom, many analysts hold that the government might finally come to its senses.

Many state corporations are already having huge liquidity issues, and a corporation like ENEO, the country’s inefficient power utility, has not paid its workers for more than three months.

SONARA is down and what is left of it is not really delivering the revenue the government needs to pay some of its bills.

This explains why a huge chunk of next year’s budget has been allocated to the repairs of the units of the national oil refinery that were heavily damaged in a fire whose origin remains a mystery.

Meanwhile, to cushion the impact of the economic crisis the country is dealing with, the government last week surreptitiously rushed a high-level delegation to Washington to negotiate with the Trump Administration on the country’s readmission into AGOA, an economic program that gives poor African countries like Cameroon access to the huge and lucrative American market.

After having made a lot of noise about the country’s sovereignty and insisting that Cameroon’s dismissal from AGOA will not hurt the country, the government had to eat its words.

America is Cameroon’s ally in the war against terrorism on the continent and American economic assistance to the Central African country has been helping it to stave off some of the social and economic pressure that could help bring down the corrupt and ineffective Yaounde government.

It was on this grounds that a high-level delegation headed to Washington to plead for clemency after having insulted Americans.

However, the mission to Washington has not gone very well as Washington is insisting that the Yaounde govern must stop conducting itself as a rogue regime.

The delegation met with U.S. under-secretary of State for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy, who advised the government delegation that there would be conditions to be met if the country would continue to enjoy free and unfettered access to the U.S. market.

Among the conditions are a release of all political prisoners in the country, a release of all Southern Cameroonians arrested due to the crisis, the holding of an inclusive dialogue as requested by the international community and the cessation of military operations in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

Yaounde is therefore looking at ways of complying with the conditions without losing face. Its politicians have already begun admitting that the government had made mistakes and that Southern Cameroonians should forgive and forget.

In this regard, there is a flurry of activities taking place in Yaounde to find lasting solutions to the crisis that has put the country in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

With the arrival last week of the heads of the AU, Commonwealth and the Francophonie in Yaounde, it is clear that the noose around the government’s neck is getting tighter.

The pressure is mounting and the country’s low energy prime minister has been busy all weekend holding meetings on how to find sustainable solutions to the issues that triggered the Southern Cameroons crisis.

The weeks ahead will be producing some good news, but the news might be coming too late as Southern Cameroonians have been radicalized and many simply want a total disconnection from East Cameroon because of the long years of pain and suffering inflicted on them by the country’s military.

The world needs a solution from the Yaounde government and some of the government’s allies are already running out patience with a government that has been at best ineffective throughout this conflict.

If it needs to regain the confidence of its allies, it must swallow its pride and approve the Canadian-sponsored, American-supported Swiss initiative that has also been approved by the European Union.

Time is of the essence. The government has been cornered and it must act fast and effectively if genuine peace and confidence have to return to Cameroon.

By Kingsley Betek and Joyce Ekinde in Yaounde

Cameroon Intelligence Report has learnt that Moussa Faki Mahamat of the African Union, Patricia Scotland of the Commonwealth and Louise Mushikiwabo of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie  met President Paul Biya privately in Yaoundé and insisted that the French Cameroun dictator should give up power.

Our chief intelligence officer in Yaoundé said the meeting, which involved representatives of the US and French embassies in Yaoundé, was held at an undisclosed location. We understand that the diplomats from the US side delivered a clear and firm message that the only way to free La Republique du Cameroun from a civil war was for the 86 year old Biya to step down.

The secret meeting occurred after a televised one with Prime Minister Dion Ngute in which French Cameroun state media, CRTV reported that Biya was still in the good books of the West and his troops were winning the Ambazonia Restoration Forces for control of the oil rich Southern Cameroons.

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government announced last week the creation of the Bank of Ambazonia which was followed with the appointment of the governor of the bank by Vice President Dabney Yerima in what would be a major boost to the Southern Cameroons campaign for total and complete independence.

The French Cameroun Minister-Secretary General at the presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh was heard murmuring privately after the meeting that the Biya regime welcomed discussions but only without preconditions.

The French Cameroun military has changed tactics several times in the back-and-forth fighting in Southern Cameroons since the Ambazonia uprising began nearly four years ago.

State TV, in a bid to counter claims that the Biya regime was crumbling, has been showing images of ordinary life in Southern Cameroons with students reportedly back to school. Biya is refusing to step down despite pressure from the United States and the European Union.

We gathered that French Cameroun political elites are now calling their pro Yaoundé Southern Cameroons counterparts as traitors. Eneo, the sole electricity provider has not been able to pay salaries for the last three months.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon’s Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and the Family on Thursday said it is working on a piece of legislation to end child marriage in the country.

Officials said the draft bill will be presented to Parliament for approval early next week.

“In Cameroon more than 62 percent of women have gone into child marriages. And we think that it is important to have a legal framework which can help us put an end to this phenomenon which is devastating and preventing the girl child from going to school and failing to fulfill her potentials,” Justine Che, executive director of Women in Alternative Action, a civil society organization working on the proposal in collaboration with the ministry told reporters in the capital, Yaounde.

Cameroon’s Minister of Women Empowerment and the Family Marie-Therese Abena Ondoa said with the law, there will be fewer girls dropping out of school and fewer girls forced to marry at an early age.

“It will ensure the development of girls in all aspects and enhance a just society where boys and girls excel equally,” Ondoa said.

The initiative falls within the framework of the global action to eliminate child marriage and female genital mutilation, according to officials.

Child and forced marriages remain a major concern in Cameroon and the situation is more preoccupying in the Far North Region where about 80 percent of women marry prematurely, according government statistics.

Source: Xinhuanet

The Federal High Court, Abuja, on Thursday declared the arrest and deportation of Dr Egbe Ogork, one of the separatist leaders of Southern Cameroon, unlawful and unconstitutional.

The trial judge, Justice A.R Mohammed, who delivered the judgment, also awarded N5m damages in favour of the applicant against the respondents for the unlawful act. 

The court held that the arrest, detention and deportation of the applicant was  null and void and unconstitutional.

Ogork was arrested alongside other persons, who were subsequently rounded up and deported to Cameroon on January  26, 2018 without an order of court.

Ogork, who is also a professor of Engineering at the  Bayero University Kano, filed the suit through his lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN).

Source: Sahara Reporters

Southern Cameroons Communications Secretary, Comrade Milton Taka says the French Cameroun government has for 58 years been occupying the Ambazonia’s oil fields in the Bakassi Peninsular and looting its resources as the international community remains silent on French Cameroun’s act of theft.

In this week’s briefing by the Ambazonia Interim Government, Milton Taka told a cream of newsmen in South Africa that French Cameroun continues to occupy Southern Cameroons oil fields in the Ndian County and has been plundering Ambazonia’ revenues in the shadow of a deliberate silence from the Commonwealth, Francophonie and the African Union including the UN Security Council.

The Ambazonia Communications Secretary said the French Cameroun war against the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has targeted Southern Cameroons civilian population in a bid to stifle support for the Interim Government and by extrapolation, support for the quest for an independent state of Southern Cameroons.

 Milton Taka noted that the Southern Cameroons war will end when French Cameroun withdraws all its army of occupation from Ambazonia and stop support for pro Yaoundé armed militias.

The Southern Cameroons Communications Chief further accused French Cameroun of occupying Ambazonia towns and cities, killing civilains, displacing tens of thousands of Ambazonians and deploying French speaking soldiers throughout Southern Cameroons territory.

Recently, US President Donald Trump announced that La Republique du Cameroun will no longer benefit from a long standing trade agreement with the United States.

By Chi Prudence Asong

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has said that there are about 218,000 Nigeria refugees in Chad, Cameroon and Niger Republic.

Addressing a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday, the UNHCR country representative, Mr Anthonio Canhandula, urged the Federal Government to create conditions that would facilitate the return of the refugees to the country.

Mr Canhandula added that Nigeria is currently housing 46,000 refugees from Cameroon, which is spread across Benue, Cross River and Taraba States.

He also noted that only 1.2 million of the 1.8 million accessible Internally Displaced Persons are receiving assistance – a situation which he believes requires urgent attention.

Source: Channelstv

Cameroon’s defense minister, Joseph Beti Assomo, is currently being investigated for embezzlement and misappropriation of state funds.

The defense minister, who is responsible for the crimes against humanity in the country’s two English-speaking regions over the last three years has been attracting a lot of attention due to huge amounts of money spent just to defeat the armed groups in Southern Cameroons.

There are allegations of over billing in the importation of arms and if there is probable cause, he will be hauled to the Yaounde maximum security prison where most of Biya’s ministers are spending their retirement.

The country’s white collar crimes squad which investigates allegations of misappropriation has been looking at documents submitted by the defense ministry for sometime now.

More will be yours soon.