A new study confirms rape has become a weapon of war in Cameroon’s separatist conflict, and many victims are terminating pregnancies with crude, unsafe abortion techniques.

Sixteen-year-old Mercy Azefor says she was raped in Nkambe while hiding on her mother’s farm after her parents were killed in April 2018. Nkambe is in the Northwest region, one of two areas where English-speaking separatist groups are fighting to break away from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority.

Azefor says a family running from the fighting drove her to Yaounde. There, she met pastor Grace Mbegno of Divine Redemption Ministries, who took her in.

Two months ago, Azefor gave birth to a baby girl.

“I gave her the name Gracious because she is all that I have,” Azefor said. “I do not want her to go through what I went through. She will certainly have good education and help others tomorrow. She knows no other father than God who created her.”

A Cameroonian nonprofit group, the Rural Women Center for Education and Development, is keeping track of at least 300 school-age girls from the Northwest region who became pregnant as a result of rape, either from suspected separatist fighters or government soldiers.

Dangerous procedures

Vera Wirsiy, coordinator of the center, says the group was motivated to carry out the study after a 14-year-old rape victim came to a hospital in the Northwest town of Ndop and asked that her six-month pregnancy be terminated.

“The young girl came to do an abortion,” Wirsiy said. “The medical personnel tried to find out what happened. She told him the community is not safe, gunshots, her grandmother is not able to take care of her. The guy impregnated her and ran.”

Wirsiy said at least 130 of the 300 girls they met had already had abortions, with some using crude traditional means that endanger their lives.

Panje Roland of Cameroon’s Ministry of Women Empowerment said many more women and girls in the Northwest and Southwest regions have been victims of sexual exploitation, but it is difficult to know their numbers because many are hiding.

‘Weapon of war’

In December, Allegra Baiocchi, coordinator of the U.N. system in Cameroon, called for the protection of women and girls in the war zone and a stop to what she called humiliating practices.

“We know that rape is today a weapon of war and many women, thousands of women, have had to flee and are today even more vulnerable to sexual abuse,” she said.

A report last year by rights group Amnesty International criticized both the Cameroon military and separatists for abuses of civilians.

In October, the government of Cameroon said it had opened investigations into reports of police and soldiers raping teenage girls and young women.

VOA

The Manyu Ghost Warriors’ media relations released a statement late on Wednesday mourning the death of one of their field commanders that was recently killed by friendly fire.

According to Manyu Ghost Warriors’ media wing, their field commander, General Shina Rambo, recently died after sustaining life-threatening wounds from gunshots fired by a serviceman in his regiment.

The Manyu Self-Defense group loyal to the Southern Cameroons Interim Government did not specify what led to the incident that Shina Rambo sustained these wounds, nor did they mention which area he was deployed at before his death.

Below is the full text made public via the Manyu Global Voice

Beloved brothers and sisters of Manyu:

This is a sad day for us as a people. We have lost one of our bravest warriors.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that General Shina Rambo is no more! Rambo died today, February 20th, 2019, from injuries he sustained from gunshots fired by one of our own in GZ. Details will be brought to you as soon as investigations wrap up.

Kindly join me to convey our heartfelt sympathies to General Rambo’s grieving family and brothers in arms.

Shina will be buried with full Ambazonia/ASC/Manyu Ghost Warriors military honors.

A two-day mourning period has been declared. All unnecessary arguments on the Manyu Global Voice Forum have been suspended during this mourning period.

You shall await further announcements. All MUST abide by this directive. Thanks

RIP Rambo

Chairman

Cameroonian students and school staff who were kidnapped on Saturday have been freed, the Bishop of Kumbo has told the BBC. A total of 176 people, mostly students, were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen at Saint Augustin’s College in Kumbo, in the North West region of Cameroon.

They were released on Sunday after negotiations. It is the largest school kidnapping in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions since separatist unrest began in 2017.

Human Rights Watch has accused rebel groups of being behind the kidnapping but they have not yet commented. They have said previous abductions were staged by the government to damage their reputation.

The gunmen entered the campus of Saint Augustine’s College Nso on Saturday morning and seized 170 students, two security guards, a teacher and three of his children, the Diocesan Director of Communications said in a statement.

Rev Elvis Nsaikila added that the authorities of the boarding school had requested parents and guardians to take their children back home as soon as possible as “the school has closed down”. The Bishop of Kumbo, Georges Nkuo, confirmed to BBC Afrique that the church officials had negotiated the release of the hostages on the condition that the school would shut.

“If the army had intervened, there would have been deaths,” he said. Saturday’s school attack was not the first in the restive Anglophone North West region.

A similar incident took place in November last year in the regional headquarter, Bamenda, where more than 80 people, including the principal, a teacher, a driver and 79 students, were kidnapped from the Presbyterian Secondary School Nkwen.

The abduction of the school children and staff marked an escalation of the two-year long crisis that has gripped the two English-speaking North West and South West regions.

Militias who want to create an independent state called Ambazonia, began to emerge in 2017 after security forces responded violently to protests calling for English to be used in classrooms and courtrooms in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions. The country is dominated by its French-speaking majority.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank estimates that around 10 armed separatist groups exist, gaining control of a “significant proportion of rural areas and main roads” in the North-West and South-West regions.

BBC

Cameroon army Thursday dismissed as “fake” claims from armed separatists that they have killed an army general in an ambush in Southwest, one of the two troubled English-speaking regions of the country.

“Information relating to the death of General Bouba is circulating at this moment. While finding this joke of very bad taste, I beg you to consider this information as fake,” Colonel Didier Badjeck, spokesman of the Cameroon army said in a statement.

Separatists claimed that the army general was killed when they ambushed his convoy on Feb. 8 but the government “has been hiding the information.”

The armed separatist forces want the two regions, North West and South West to secede from the majority French-speaking nation and form a new nation called “Ambazonia.” Clashes started in November 2017 and about 430,000 people have been displaced internally according to United Nations.

Xinhuanet

The Roman Catholic Church has shut down one of its biggest boarding schools in Kumbo in the restive Northwest Cameroon after unidentified gunmen briefly kidnapped students and employees.

The gunmen stormed the campus of Saint Augustine’s College, Nso on Saturday and seized 170 students, two security guards, a teacher and three of his children, Fr Elvis Nsaikila, the Diocesan Director of Communications, said.

“The abductees were released in the afternoon of Sunday and conveyed back to the college campus in the evening,” Fr Nsaikila said, without disclosing who was behind the kidnap and whether the school paid any ransoms to the abductors.

However, the Sun newspaper reported that “only petrol money” was given to the kidnappers.

Parents and guardians

Fr Nsaikila said authorities of the boarding school had requested parents and guardians to take their children back home as soon as possible as “the school has closed down”.

The Kumbo school attack, just two days after a 10-day lockdown imposed on the region by separatist activists, was not the first in the restive English Northwest region. A similar incident took place in November last year in the regional headquarter, Bamenda, where more than 80 people, including the principal, a teacher, a driver and 79 students, were kidnapped from the Presbyterian Secondary School, Nkwen by suspected secessionists.

Saturday’s abduction marked an escalation of the over two-year long crisis that has gripped the two English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions.

Internally displaced

The crisis in the anglophone Cameroon started as an industrial strike by lawyers and teachers in 2016, but snowballed into an internal armed conflict in 2017 when separatists joined in and symbolically declared the independence of the state of Ambazonia. No country has recognised the self-declared state.

Though the majority of teachers’ unions called off their strike in February 2017, separatist activists have continued to pressure the local population to keep their children out of school, promising “to deal with” those seen in the institutions.

According to the latest Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), over 444,000 people have fled their homes and were currently internally displaced in the regions due to the violence.

In addition to the internally displaced, over 32,600 others have fled across the border and were registered as refugees in neighbouring Nigeria with many of them exposed to varied dangers, including risk of food insecurity, the report adds.

The East African

What a way to start the week in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia – settling down to watch one of the major events of the Southern Cameroons revolution that affects your donations to the Interim Government.

In his presentation, the Secretary for Economy and Finance will make public the Interim government’s spending for the war in Southern Cameroons.

Here is an essential guide to readers of the Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report.

When is the Secretary’s Statement?

It is on Monday, 18 of February, at about 8 pm Amba Time on SCBC

Five things to watch for in Secretary Tabenyang Brado’s Statement

The presentation will be base on a rebuttal of the spurious and slanderous statements towards his integrity.

Focus will be on the Treasury, Bank accounts/ payment platforms signatories and access,

Financial Reports, Internal Audit, My Trip to Buea, Ethics Commission, Accountability/Transparency,

SCBC saga/payments,

APNC involvement and why President Sissiku Julius Ayuk Tabe spoke from jail

Who is Ambazonia Secretary for Economy and Finance?

Arguably, the third most powerful person in the Southern Cameroons government, behind  Communications Secretary, Chris Anu and Acting President Ikome Sako. He was appointed as Secretary for Economy and Finance by President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe

Is this the only Economy and Finance presentation that matters?

No. Many issues regarding the state of the Southern Cameroons revolution, as well as support for the county-by-county initiative.  Expect more on those in the coming weeks.

What are the big talking points?

The Tabenyang Brado presentation comes hot on the heels of a major crisis deep within the Interim Government during which Communications Secretary Chris Anu announced he was stepping down from his cabinet portfolio.

The Secretary for Economy and Finance needs to raise extra money somehow and tomorrow provides him that opportunity.

The Ambazonian Interim Government has committed to funding Ground Zero operations via the county-by-county initiative and the IG intends to help weaker counties.  Ministers have indicated it will be funded by the Southern Cameroons Diaspora, so all eyes are on the Secretary for Economy and Finance for a solution.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in London

Four people were killed in a road accident Saturday in southwestern Cameroon, according to local authorities.

Witnesses said the accident happened when a private car collided head-on with a motorcycle and another vehicle.

“The driver was driving very fast and apparently lost track. His car collided with a motorcycle and another oncoming vehicle. The motorcyclist, two passengers and the driver of the private car died on the spot,” Gilles Mulang who witnessed the accident told Xinhua.

Other injured passengers were immediately rushed to hospital to receive medical attention, according to officials.

On Friday, Cameroon’s Minister of Transport Jean Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe made public a list of 13 travel companies that violated Highway Code in 2018 and warned that they would be sanctioned if they didn’t “improve on quality.”

Last year, Cameroon’s Ministry of Transport estimated that at least 1,200 people died in road accidents each year in the country.

Xinhuanet