In a major move to alleviate the plight of Southern Cameroon refugees in Cross River State, an organization, Biakwan Light Green Initiative (BLGI) has donated farm seedlings, food items and clothing to the refugees.

The benefitting refugees who are seeking safety in the Cross River have formed a significant population in the Biakwan community of the Boki local government area due to the ongoing conflict in the country’s southern region.

Presenting the items, The Executive Director of BLGI, Mr. Peter Bette said the idea of the support was to reduce pressure on the community forest.

In addition to this, the support will also provide livelihood to women, and enhance capacity through training to secure women’s rights and food security pool.

Odey Oyama, a conservationist, commended the environmental group for the initiative stating that empowerment would serve its purpose.

He encouraged the displaced persons to key into the programme as Nigeria and Cameroon share a complex and dynamic diplomatic relationship.

The Board Chairman of NGO Coalition for Environment (NGOCE) Dr. Odiga Odiga urged the refugees and some of the community members who also benefited to take of the opportunity and ensure they engage in all activities.

The renowned environmentalist assured the beneficiaries that the project would promote sustainable agriculture and agroforestry like planting indigenous fruit trees and home gardens to enhance biodiversity, and mitigate climate change.

The Town Council Chairman Mr. Joseph praised BLGI and pledged his support for the project, noting that it would strengthen collaboration and foster relationships between the refugees and the host community.

Responding to the gesture, the leader of the refugees, Elder Ben Kachi appreciated the team for the gifts and support.

Source: Sunnewsonline

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations today held an official launch here of its Green Cities Initiative, which is already being piloted in Cameroon, with seven municipalities submitting letters of intent to join the initiative.

In remarks at the launch event, FAO Director-General QU Dongyu noted that with two thirds of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050 – urban areas are facing major challenges.

“Municipalities are at the frontline of citizens’ expectations to improve their livelihoods and well-being, from accessing nutritious foods, adequate water, energy, and housing”, Qu said

They must also address “multiple challenges such as the impacts of the climate crisis, environment degradation, waste management and urban inequality, among others,” he added.

Enthusiastic welcome

Georges Elanga Obam, Cameroon’s Minister of Decentralization and local development described the rapid growth of the country’s urban population and the associated challenges and said Cameroon could not but enthusiastically welcome FAO’s Green Cities Initiative.

The Yaoundé City Mayor, Luc Messi Atangana, also expressed his appreciation for the initiative.

In Cameroon, the number of city dwellers has increased by 50 percent between 2010 and 2020, with more than 15 million urban residents now, half of them living in Yaoundé and Douala. Since March 2023, a pilot Green Cities Initiative project has been underway in the capital’s Yaoundé 4 district. Its implementation, focusing on a micro-project for training of waste collectors who visit households and collect waste for composting, the process of composting itself and promotion of urban agriculture, has attracted interest from other municipalities in Yaoundé and elsewhere.

At today’s meeting, seven more municipalities formally handed over letters of intent to Qu to join the initiative. The Director-General expressed FAO’s eagerness to support them with innovative actions on the ground with impact to be upscaled and expanded.

Qu told the municipalities’ mayors he was confident that in partnership with FAO they could make their cities “greener, healthier, and more sustainable through among others expanding urban forestry and agriculture and creation of green jobs for the younger generation.”

Vibrant inclusive cities

FAO’s flagship Green Cities Initiative was launched globally in 2020. It envisions vibrant and inclusive cities where urban green and productive spaces catalyze climate resilience, social cohesion, and economic prosperity. It also aims at bridging the gap between urban and rural areas and between citizens and nature. The FAO GCI supports cities to develop through the availability and access to goods and services provided by urban and peri-urban forestry, agriculture as well as through the circular bioeconomy.

Building on FAO’s expertise on sustainable urban and peri urban agriculture and forestry, and urban food systems, the Green Cities Initiative supports local governments to plan, design and implement innovative green actions bringing together efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, multifunctional green infrastructure, and natural resources management.

The Green Cities Initiative seeks to improve the livelihoods and well-being of urban and peri-urban populations in at least 100 cities (15 metropolitan, 40 intermediate and 45 small cities) around the world and aims to have 1000 cities join by 2030.

Culled from the FAO

Two teachers were kidnapped early Monday in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone region of Northwest, according to local and security sources.

Schools in Southern Cameroons resumed classes Monday for the last term of the academic year after a two-week holiday. The teachers were on their way to school when gunmen, identified by locals as separatist fighters, ambushed and abducted them in the region’s Njap village.

“They (gunmen) took them (teachers) into the bush. They also torched about 13 commercial motorcycles that were carrying passengers,” a local official, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said.

The army said a search and rescue operation for the teachers was underway in the area.

Fighting between government forces and separatist fighters has persisted in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest since 2017 when separatists attempted to establish an independent nation in these regions.

Teachers and students are regularly abducted in the region, where separatists have warned government schools not to operate.

Source: Xinhuanet

At least six people, including a soldier and five separatists, have lost their lives following a Cameroonian military raid on a locality in the war-torn North West region, local and security sources said Thursday.

The raid occurred on Wednesday night in Bamfem, situated in the Bui division. Government forces launched a coordinated assault on a separatist hideout, leading to clashes with separatist fighters, said a military official in the region.

“During the clashes, our forces killed five terrorist separatists, but unfortunately, we also lost one soldier. Several of the separatists managed to flee with gunshot wounds,” said the official, who requested anonymity when speaking to the press.

Separatist leaders, however, claimed on social media that all the individuals killed were civilians, asserting that none of their fighters were harmed during the clashes.

Cameroonian forces are escalating operations in the two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest as the Central African country prepares for presidential elections next year. Since 2017, separatists in these regions have been in conflict with government forces, aiming to establish an independent nation.

Source: Xinhuanet

A Journalist’s son confessed to have slaughtered his mother in Yaoundé the nation’s capital whose death recently sparked national anger.

Batek Yebel Landry a notorious drug addict and gambler admitted to murdering Louisette Ngo Yebel his mother a few hours after he was arrested by police officers.

Many wrongfully thought the killing was ordered by top CPDM figures as she uncovered networks of corruption in the Ministry of Environment and was known as a harsh critic of the Biya government.

Her body parts were found in two separate travelling bags in Nsam, a neighborhood in Yaoundé.

 Family sources hinted that Batek Yebel was earlier accused as the prime suspect of his mother’s dead because he killed his grandmother some months ago which was kept as a family secret.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that Batek Yebel is a graduate from the Advanced School of Administration and Magistracy (ENAM).

By Rita Akana

Three migrants died in a highway accident in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, authorities said Thursday.

At least two of the dead — a man and a woman — are from the African nation of Cameroon, and the identity of the third is being checked. Five more migrants were injured and are being treated at local hospitals.

The country’s National Immigration Institute did not immediately identify the cause of the crash, or provide information on the condition of those injured.

Oaxaca is a key route for migrants seeking to cross Mexico to reach the U.S. border, and accidents involving migrants there are common.

In March, the bodies of eight Asian migrants were found after a boat accident along Oaxaca’s Pacific coast.

One survivor, an Asian man, was located. The bodies were found near a beach in the town of Playa Vicente, which is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) east of Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

In 2023, at least 16 migrants from Venezuela and Haiti died in a bus crash in Oaxaca.

There has been a series of migrant deaths in Mexico amid a surge in migrants traveling toward the U.S. border. Because migration agents often raid regular buses, migrants and smugglers often seek out risky forms of transportation, like unregulated buses, trains or freight trucks.

Last year, 10 Cuban migrants died and 17 others were seriously injured after a freight truck they were riding in crashed on a highway in the neighboring state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala.

The National Immigration Institute said all of the dead Cuban migrants were women, and one of them was under 18.

The Institute said the driver of the vehicle had apparently been speeding and lost control of the truck, which was carrying 27 migrants at the time. The driver fled the scene.

Mexican authorities generally prohibit migrants without proper documents from buying tickets for regular buses, so those without the money to hire smugglers often hire poorly-driven, poorly-maintained buses that speed to avoid being stopped. Or they walk along the side of highways, hitching rides aboard passing trucks.

Last week, a truck flipped over on a highway in Chiapas, killing two Central American migrants and injuring another 27. And two Central American migrants died last week after trying to board a moving train in the state of Coahuila near the Texas border.

Source: WRALnews

Police in Cameroon fired tear gas on Saturday morning as they clashed with residents fighting eviction from a neighbourhood adjacent to Newton Airport in the country’s economic capital Douala.

An official said inhabitants of the informal settlement, known locally as Fret Aeroport, were illegally occupying government land and that they would not be compensated.

Some residents, many of whom have lived next to the airport for decades despite repeated attempts by the authorities to move them, said they were given less than two days to move out.

“This is airport land, the airport has its land title here, and these populations have settled anarchically,” said Hector Eto Fame, a local government representative.

“People who illegally occupy the private domain of the state do not deserve, according to the law, compensation.”

Riot police fought pitched battles with people throwing stones as they went from house to house, creeping through streets choked with furniture, mattresses and tear gas. A barricade of burning tables was seen blocking one road.

Elsewhere, women and children cried as they watched a large excavator tear down buildings amid a wasteland of concrete and crumpled metal roofing.

It’s the second time people have been evicted from the neighbourhood this year. In January almost 200 families were forced out of their homes, according to local rights groups.

The government has said previously more than 100,000 people were living within the airport perimeter, and it was necessary to move them to prevent people crossing the runway and to protect aircraft.

“We were given the formal notice less than a day before the destruction. I’m overwhelmed,” said Daïkolé Mama, a resident.

“We were not told anything about the motivation for the destruction. I have been living in this neighbourhood for 30 years.”

Source: Reuters

The trial for the killing of a popular Cameroonian journalist opened on Monday with 17 people in the dock, including an ex-secret service chief, but was immediately adjourned until April 15.

The badly-mutilated body of reporter Arsene Salomon Mbani Zogo, known as “Martinez”, was found a few days after he was abducted in front of a police station outside the capital Yaoundé on January 17 last year.

The 50-year-old ardent anti-corruption and anti-cronyism campaigner had often singled out government officials by name, earning the ire of powerful figures.

Those on trial at Yaounde Military Court include Leopold Maxime Eko Eko, the then-director of Cameroon’s powerful military intelligence service, his head of operations Justin Danwe, and members of a military commando accused of Zogo’s kidnap, torture and murder.

Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, a wealthy businessman believed to be close to ministers and officers in the Central African nation, is also amongst the accused.

All are accused of either actively taking part in or complicity in Zogo’s kidnap, torture and murder.

The killing caused an outcry in the country, which has been ruled with an iron fist for more four decades by President Paul Biya, 91.

The defendants showed no signs of any emotion during a three-hour hearing as the charges against them were read out.

The lawyers were then invited to present their initial observations by Colonel Jacques Misse Njone, presiding the session, before he adjourned the case to next month “to respond to all the observations and communicate the lists of witnesses”.

Calvin Job, the Zogo family’s lawyer, complained that “the civil parties have never been asked to participate in the investigation”.

“This is unacceptable. To date, I have not had access to the file,” he added.

The court commissioner promised to rectify that and make the file available.

Source: AFP

Ambazonia fighters have reportedly killed a prominent mayor in the Northwest region on Saturday morning, according to local police.

Solomon Nkwato, the second deputy mayor of Babessi Council of Ngoketunjia Division in the region, was shot dead as he was about to leave his home, police said without elaborating.

Local media reported that the mayor was known for leading peace-building efforts among young people in the region.

An armed separatist conflict has been going on in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest since 2017. The separatists want to break away from the majority of French-speaking Cameroon and create an independent nation.

Source: Xinhuanet

U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow sentenced Njuh Valentine Fombe, a/k/a “Valentine”, age 37, a Cameroonian citizen, formerly residing in Beltsville, Maryland, today to 12 years in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracies to commit wire fraud and money laundering, and for aggravated identity theft, in connection with a business email compromise fraud scheme with intended losses of more than $2 million.  Based on court documents and evidence presented during Fombe’s sentencing, the Court also found that Fombe engaged in a pandemic-related unemployment fraud scheme while he was a fugitive residing in the United Kingdom.

In addition to prison time, Judge Chasanow ordered Fombe to pay restitution of $325,856.12 and to forfeit $547,310.23.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek L. Barron; Special Agent in Charge James C. Harris of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore; Chief Robert McCullough of the Baltimore County Police Department; and Chief Russell E. Hamill III of the Laurel Police Department.

According to court documents and evidence presented at today’s sentencing hearing, from at least September 2016 to August 2018, Fombe conspired with others to commit wire fraud by conducting business email compromise (“BEC”) schemes in which Fombe‘s co-conspirators gained unauthorized access to email accounts, personal identifying information, and bank accounts by sending false wiring instructions to the victims’ email accounts.  Fombe and his co-conspirators then used the illegally obtained personal information to obtain counterfeit checks in the name and information of the victims’ bank accounts.  Victims of the BEC scheme were from California, Tennessee, Michigan, Hawaii and Illinois.  Fombe and his co-conspirators also registered fraudulent shell entities to facilitate the scheme, opening and managing bank accounts in the names of the fraudulent shell entities’, as well as their own names and aliases, to direct and receive proceeds of the BEC and check schemes.

After Fombe’s indictment in 2019, Fombe fled the United States on a fraudulently obtained Honduran passport, ultimately residing in the United Kingdom until his arrest there on June 16, 2022 and subsequent extradition to the United States. 

United States Attorney Erek L. Barron commended HSI, the Baltimore County Police Department and the Laurel Police Department for their work in the investigation.  Mr. Barron thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kelly O. Hayes, Christopher M. Sarma, and Bijon Mostoufi, who prosecuted the case.

Source: Justice.gov/usa