News

2, May 2023

Cameroon’s Clementine Nkweta-Salami is new UN Deputy Special Representative for Sudan ⁰

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Clementine Nkweta-Salami of Cameroon as his Deputy Special Representative for Sudan with the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS). She will also serve as the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan. Ms. Nkweta-Salami succeeds Khardiata Lo N’Diaye of Senegal, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for her dedication.

Ms. Nkweta-Salami brings to the position, 30 years of experience in humanitarian affairs and protection, mainly in field settings. For the past three years, she has served as Director of the Regional Bureau for the East, Horn and Great Lakes Regions of Africa of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), where she is responsible for providing strategic direction, support and oversight of 11 UNHCR country offices. Prior to this, she was UNHCR Representative to Ethiopia, Regional Representative to Southern Africa, Representative to Burundi and Head of Inspection in the Inspector General’s Office at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva. She has also served in field positions with UNHCR in the United Republic of Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Ms. Nkweta-Salami holds a masters degree in corporate and commercial law from University College, University of London, a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and a Bachelor of Social Science degree in sociology and political science from the University of Ottawa. Ms. Nkweta-Salami is a qualified barrister and member of the English and Cameroon Bar.

Source: UN Press

2, May 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Amba fighters kill 4 officers in Matouke ⁰

At least four gendarmerie officers were killed and two others seriously wounded in an attack by Southern Cameroons Self Defense Group in Matouke, a village located in Mbanga in the Littoral bordering the South West Region, Cameroon’s Defense Ministry said Monday.

The deadly attack took place on the sidelines of activities celebrating International Labour Day on Monday, May 1, 2023, in Matouke.

According to a military source contacted by Cameroon Intelligence Report, elements of the security and defense forces in a joint detachment were ambushed by suspected Amba fighters in the district of Mbanga on the Penda-Mboko road where there is a joint security post.

Three of the four officers killed were identified as Gendarme Major Marré, Sergeant Djoni and Sergeant Assomo. At the time of filing this report news filtered that Ndum Acha Arrison, a motorcycle rider had died of wounds sustained in the attack.

The Ambazonian fighters reportedly made away with four weapons.

The wounded, which are being treated at the military hospital in Douala-Bonanjo, were visited by the Governor of the Littoral Region, Samuel Dieudonné Ivaha Diboua.

More than 10,000 people including some 4000 Cameroon government army soldiers have been killed and nearly 2 million displaced since the start of the Southern Cameroons crisis seven years ago.

Violence committed by both Cameroon government army soldiers and Amba fighters has affected academic institutions all over Southern Cameroons.

The war is also affecting the Littoral and the West, which are neighboring regions to British Southern Cameroons.

By Nelly Epupa with files from Fon Lawrence

1, May 2023

Rescued Southern Cameroonian migrants won’t be allowed to reenter Antigua ⁰

Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne has confirmed reports that migrants from Cameroon who were rescued from a recent boat disaster, will not be allowed to reenter the country.

“Why bring them back when they are likely to smuggle out of the country again,” said the Prime Minister in an article written in his own publication.

His comment confirmed a recent statement from the government of St Kitts Nevis which indicated that Antigua and Barbuda had reneged on its previous promise to accept the refugees back into the twin-island nation.

Over one month ago – on March 28, 14 migrants, along with two Antiguans, were rescued after their boat capsized in water offshore St Kitts en route from Antigua to St Thomas, in the United States Virgin Islands.

“The government of St Kitts and Nevis continues to pursue workable and diplomatic solutions as it is duty bound so to do,” the statement from the neighbouring country’s Ministry of National Security added.

Meanwhile, all but one of nine people who fled the detention facility outside Basseterre on Thursday have since been located.

They were among some of the survivors of fishing vessel La Belle Michelle, which ran into difficulty while dangerously overcrowded with around 30 passengers.

Three bodies were pulled from the sea but more than a dozen more still missing and presumed dead.

They were among hundreds of Cameroonian refugees fleeing conflict back home who arrived in Antigua and Barbuda late last year on charter flights from Nigeria.

Source: Caribbean Loopnews

1, May 2023

Yaoundé: Biya meets with Faustin-Archange ⁰

The President of the Central African Republic Faustin-Archange Touadéra has held talks with BIYA at the Unity Palace.

For two hours, the two leaders, who were meeting again just a few weeks after the 15th ordinary CEMAC summit reportedly, exchanged views on the security situation in the CEMAC region.

Cameroon Concord News understands that no declaration was made at the end of the talks.

BIYA, who handed over the presidency of the CEMAC Heads of State Conference to his Central African counterpart on 17 March, did not miss the opportunity to reiterate his support for the smooth running of the Community.

By Rita Akana in Yaoundé

29, April 2023

Over 400 civilians dead as rival forces continue to fight over control of Sudan ⁰

Gunfire and heavy artillery fire persisted Saturday in parts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, residents said, despite the extension of a cease-fire between the country’s two top generals, whose battle for power has killed hundreds and sent thousands fleeing for their lives.

The civilian death toll jumped Saturday to 411 people, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, which monitors casualties. The fighting has wounded another 2,023 civilians so far, the group added, although the true toll is expected to be much higher. In the city of Genena, the provincial capital of war-ravaged West Darfur, intensified violence has killed 89 people. Fighters have moved into homes and taken over stores and hospitals as they battle in the densely populated streets, the syndicate said.

Khartoum, a city of some 5 million people, has been transformed into a front line in the grinding conflict between Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, the commander of Sudan’s military, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces. The outbreak of violence has dashed once-euphoric hopes for a democratic transition in Sudan after a popular uprising helped oust former dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Foreign countries continued to evacuate their citizens while thousands of Sudanese fled across borders. Britain said it was ending its evacuation flights Saturday, after demand for spots on the planes had declined. The United Arab Emirates announced Saturday it had started evacuating its citizens along with nationals of 16 other countries.

Over 50,000 refugees — mostly women and children — have crossed over to Chad, Egypt, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, the United Nations said, raising fears of wider instability in the region. Ethnic fighting and turmoil has scarred South Sudan and the Central African Republic for years while a 2021 coup has derailed Chad’s own democratic transition.

Those who escape Khartoum face more obstacles on their route to safety. The overland journey to Port Sudan, where ships then evacuate people via the Red Sea, has proven long and risky. Hatim el-Madani, a former journalist, said that paramilitary fighters were stopping refugees at roadblocks outside Khartoum, demanding they hand over their phones and valuables.

“There’s an outlaw, bandit-like nature to the RSF,” he said, referring to Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces. “They don’t have a supply line in place. That could get worse in the coming days.”

Airlifts from the country have also posed challenges, with a Turkish evacuation plane even hit by gunfire outside Khartoum on Friday.

On Saturday — despite a cease-fire extended under heavy international pressure early Friday — clashes continued around the presidential palace, headquarters of the state broadcaster and a military base in Khartoum, residents said. The battles sent thick columns of black smoke billowing over the city skyline.

In a few areas near the capital, including in Omdurman, some reported that shops were reopening as the scale of fighting dwindled. But in other areas, terrified residents hunkered down reported explosions thundering around them and fighters ransacking houses.

Now in its third week, the fighting has left swaths of Khartoum without electricity and running water. The Sudanese Health Ministry put the latest overall death toll at 528, with 4,500 wounded.

Those sheltering at home are running out of food and basic supplies. Residents in the city of Omdurman, west of Khartoum, have been waiting at least three days to get fuel — complicating their escape plans.

The U.N. relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said that U.N. offices in Khartoum, as well as the cities of Genena and Nyala in Darfur had been attacked and looted. Genena’s main hospital was also leveled in the fighting, Sudan’s health ministry said.

“This is unacceptable — and prohibited under international law,” Griffiths said.

Over the past 15 days, the generals have failed to deal a decisive blow to the other in their struggle for control of Africa’s third largest nation. The military has appeared to have the upper hand in the fighting, with its monopoly on air power, but it has been impossible to confirm its claims of advances.

“Soon, the Sudanese state with its well-grounded institutions will rise as victorious, and attempts to hijack our country will be aborted forever,” the Sudanese military said Saturday.

Both sides in the conflict have a long history of human rights abuses. The RSF was born out of the Janjaweed militias, which were accused of widespread atrocities when the government deployed them to put down a rebellion in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the early 2000s.

A unit of Sudan’s armed forces, known as the Central Reserve Police, have been sanctioned by the United Staets for grave human rights violations against Sudan’s pro-democracy protesters.

Accusations of rape, torture and other abuses against demonstrators carried out by the unit first surfaced in 2021, after Burhan and Dagalo joined forces in a military coup that ousted a civilian government. The Sudanese Interior Ministry confirmed the deployment of the Central Reserve Police in Khartoum on Saturday, posting photos of the fighters riding with heavy machine guns mounted on pickup trucks.

Former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who was ousted in the 2021 coup, appealed to the international community from a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, to push for an immediate halt to the conflict. He warned that a full-blown civil war in the strategically located country would have consequences not just for Sudan but for the world.

“God forbid if Sudan is to reach a proper civil war … it is a huge country and very diverse … it would be a nightmare for the world,” he said.

But the generals have so far rejected attempts at a compromise. Regional mediators have been unable to travel to Khartoum because of the chaotic fighting.

African Union Chairperson Moussa Faki said he would nonetheless try to send peacekeepers to the country.

“I’m ready to go there myself, even by road,” Faki said. “We ask the two generals to create the conditions for us to go to Khartoum.”

Source: AP

29, April 2023

Antigua and Barbuda: Stranded Southern Cameroonians growing increasingly desperate ⁰

Cameroonian migrants stranded in Antigua say they’re reaching breaking point as the stress of surviving on meagre funds, separated from loved ones, takes its toll on their health and wellbeing.

Hundreds of refugees who arrived on charter flights from Nigeria late last year are believed to remain in the country, with their intended destination – the USA – seeming increasingly elusive.

Risky sea voyages to neighbouring islands taken by those hoping to reach the United States via South America have already claimed an estimated 16 lives. News broke on Thursday that several of those rescued from the March 28 boat disaster in St Kitts while attempting to reach the US Virgin Islands had escaped a Basseterre detention facility.

While many of the migrants still in Antigua have secured casual work, they say the paltry income falls far short of financing their onward journey.

One of those who spoke to Observer admits falling victim to scammers who conned him out of money wired from loved ones back home to pay for a fake passport that never transpired.

Thirty-five-year-old Jean* – who hails from one of Cameroon’s Francophone regions – says he arrived in Antigua on December 29, after forking out a colossal US$5,000 for a journey he was told would take him to Suriname.

From there, he planned to travel overland to the US, which last June offered temporary protected status to Cameroonians already in the country and where he hoped to claim asylum.

“The Nigerian agent abandoned us here,” he tells Observer. “When we call the agent or send a message – no reply.”

Desperate to get to South America, Jean says he paid another US$1,500 for a flight to Suriname.

“But when I get to the airport they say no, not possible, because Suriname say no Cameroonian in this country. I lost the flight,” he explains.

Suriname requires Cameroonians to have a visa to enter the country. Jean says he applied for one online and was initially successful.

“It is blocked because they found that it was a passage to the United States,” he says.

Exacerbating Jean’s anxiety is being separated from his wife and four-year-old son who he left at home, planning to send for them once he had secured his status.

Four months later – and still thousands of kilometres from the US – his frustration and anguish are palpable.

Jean is not an English-speaking Cameroonian – who have suffered years of discrimination in the majority French-speaking nation – but he says the bitter separatist conflict has become pervasive.

Many Cameroonians in Antigua say they face prison or even death if they were to return.

The pain of not being able to see or to provide for his family is insufferable, Jean says, adding that he occasionally avoids speaking with them because it torments him further.

“When I think about it sometimes I feel like collapsing, I can’t stop crying,” he tells Observer.

The Antigua and Barbuda government has waived work permit requirements for Africans who arrived on Antigua Airways and Hi Fly flights last November and December.

And it has told the migrants they are welcome to stay.

Indeed, around 60 percent of the 110 people interviewed by UN agencies recently indicated their intention to do just that.

Jean claims this is not the case in reality and that interviewees were simply keen to throw the authorities off the scent as they continue to find ways to leave the island covertly.

“No one wants to stay,” he says flatly. “Here, life is so difficult, everything very expensive. If I tell you that I live well here, I am lying. You think I can support my family? Do I eat well? With what appetite?

“The day I get out of here I’ll be relieved. Look at my face full of spots and pimples; these are the results of stress. Who can live away from his family and be comfortable?”

Jean might consider himself one of the lucky ones. More than 80 percent of those who spoke with the UN agencies reported being unemployed. Jean is eking out a living as a labourer for a benevolent Antiguan.

But as a trained lawyer, it’s far from what he envisaged as a young man studying to make a life for himself back in Cameroon.

“We had the chance to grow up with our own people and to have a reliable education. We didn’t ask for war.

“I was a young and brilliant lawyer of my state who had dreamed of becoming great. Today I am either a labourer or a worker, and it hurts me so much.

“If nothing is done for me I feel that I will crack, I assure you.”

Jean concedes that Antiguans have been good to him and his compatriots.

“Antiguans are kind to us, very nice people here, plenty people help us and send food. Every time we go to the shop they give us food,” he says.

Still, the 108-square mile isle doesn’t offer the opportunities Jean dreams of. Those, he thinks, can be better found in Florida where he has friends.

Several of his Cameroonian associates have already left the country on fake passports, he claims.

“Many have left this way; I do not hide you. I have someone who helped me with this but I never received it,” he says.

Asked how he got the money to pay for what he says was a counterfeit Ghanaian passport, he replies, “My share was paid from my home country by my close friend – US$2,000.

“The strategy was to make the passports that are visa-free for the countries that are on our way [to the US].”

Jean’s primary reason for speaking out now is in the hope someone can help him.

“If this message could reach the immigration officials of Guyana, Suriname, Nicaragua, for compassion to accept me in their territory,” he says.

“On the material level, any help is welcome, especially for housing here. The little money we had on arrival is completely finished; now we are just looking to eat.”

He adds, “I also need prayers.”

*Speaking on condition of anonymity

Source: Antiguaobserver

27, April 2023

Martinez Zogo Affair: Business tycoon Amougou Belinga fails in bail attempt ⁰

A Yaoundé judge rejected a request for provisional release submitted by the CEO of the press group Anecdote, detained at the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaoundé over the Martinez Zogo affair.

Judge Gilbert Schlick ruled that even though the disgraced Francophone business guru was willing to double his proposed security, the risk of interfering with witnesses and destroying evidence remained too high, Judge Schlick said Thursday. “He has access to resources” Schlick said.

The tycoon faces charges of sponsoring and participating in the murder of journalist Martnez Zogo, according to an investigation that was ordered by President Paul Biya.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that Amougou Belinga had destroyed phones and servers, was telling a witness what to say and luring others to Paris to influence them with the help of associates.

Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga is reportedly a diabolical maniac and a cold-blooded and hardened criminal with strong ties to the Biya regime.

He was remanded in custody on Saturday, March 4, 2023 by the Military Court in Yaoundé for “complicity in torture by aiding” in the case of Martinez Zogo, a whistleblower journalist kidnapped on January 17, 2023 before being murdered shortly after.

By Rita Akana in Yaoundé

27, April 2023

Cameroon, Chad agree to resolve dispute over Exxon Mobil sale ⁰

Cameroon and Chad have agreed to resolve their dispute over assets belonging to a multinational oil giant, Exxon Mobil, an official said Wednesday.

Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, a Cameroonian presidential official, announced this after a meeting with Chad’s transitional president, Mahamat Idriss Deby, in the capital N’Djamena, according to Chad Information Agency.

The centuries-old relations between our two countries, which have “always been excellent remain the same” and the two heads of state are “willing to continue to work to strengthen these relations for the well-being of their states and their peoples,” Ngoh was quoted as saying.

“Some misunderstandings have been dispelled and there is really no cloud in the relationship between Cameroon and Chad.”

Ngoh, who visited the country as a special envoy, days after Chad recalled its ambassador to the neighboring country over the dispute, handed Deby “a message of friendship, a message of fraternity” from his counterpart Paul Biya.

Chad recalled its ambassador to Cameroon on April 21 amid a dispute over assets belonging to a multinational oil giant, Exxon Mobil, which the Chadian government nationalized.

Last month, the Chadian government nationalized assets of Exxon Mobil which include the company’s interest in the more than 1,000 km (621 miles) Chad-Cameroon pipeline from Chad to the Atlantic Gulf of Guinea coast used to export crude.

The controversial move came months after ExxonMobil had in December closed the sale of its operations in Chad and Cameroon to British-listed Africa-focused oil and gas energy company, Savannah Energy, in a $407 million deal.

The sale was contested by the Chadian military government.

Chad was infuriated over reports that Savannah Energy had decided to sell its 10% stake in a company that controls the Cameroonian section of the Chad-Cameroon oil export pipeline to Cameroon state oil company, at $44.9 million — which the Chadian authorities were against.

The Chadian presidency accused the Cameroonian authorities of being dishonest in negotiations aimed to resolve the disputes regarding the acquisition of the assets of ExxonMobil by Savannah Energy.

Gali Ngothe Gatta, a Chad presidential official, had warned that the “dispute undermines relations between the two countries and could have consequences on economic and political cooperation.”

Source: Cameroon Info.Net

27, April 2023

World Bank says commodity prices to register sharpest drop since the pandemic ⁰

Global commodity prices are expected to decline this year at the fastest clip since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, clouding the growth prospects of almost two-thirds of developing economies that depend on commodity exports, according to the World Bank’s latest Commodity Markets Outlook report.

The drop in prices, however, is expected to bring little relief to the nearly 350 million people across the world who face food insecurity. Although food prices are expected to fall by 8% in 2023, they will be at the second-highest level since 1975. Moreover, as of February this year, annual food price inflation is at 20% globally, the highest level over the past two decades.

“The surge in food and energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has largely passed due to slowing economic growth, a moderate winter, and reallocations in the commodity trade,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “But this is of little comfort to consumers in many countries. In real terms, food prices will remain at one of the highest levels of the past five decades. Governments should avoid trade restrictions and protect their poorest citizens using targeted income-support programs rather than price controls.”

Overall, commodity prices are expected to fall by 21% in 2023 relative to last year. Energy prices are projected to decline by 26% this year. The price of Brent crude oil in U.S. dollars is expected to average $84 a barrel this year—down 16% from the 2022 average. European and U.S. natural-gas prices are forecast to halve between 2022 and 2023, while coal prices are expected to decrease 42% in 2023. Fertilizer prices are also projected to fall by 37% in 2023, which would mark the largest annual drop since 1974. However, fertilizer prices are still near their recent high last seen during the 2008-09 food crisis.

Ayhan Kose, the World Bank’s Deputy Chief Economist and Director of Prospects Group, said: “The decline in commodity prices over the past year has helped reduce global headline inflation. However, central bankers need to remain vigilant as a wide range of factors, including weaker-than-expected oil supply, a more commodity-intensive recovery in China, an intensification of geopolitical tensions, or unfavorable weather conditions, could push prices higher and reignite inflationary pressures.”

Despite the large declines expected this year, prices of all major commodity groups will remain well above their 2015-2019 average levels. European natural gas prices will hover at almost three times the average in 2015-19. Energy and coal prices will also remain above the pre-pandemic average.

“Metal prices, which increased slightly early in the year, are expected to fall by 8% relative to last year, primarily because of weak global demand and improved supplies,” said Valerie Mercer-Blackman, Lead Economist in the World Bank’s Prospects Group. “In the longer term, however, the energy transition could significantly lift the demand for some metals, notably lithium, copper, and nickel.”

A Special Focus section of the report evaluates the performance of a wide range of approaches used to forecast prices of seven industrial commodities (oil and six industrial metals). A key finding of the study is that futures prices, which are widely used for price forecasts, often lead to large forecast errors. Econometric models based on multiple independent variables tend to outperform other approaches as well as futures prices. The analysis suggests that augmenting model-based forecasting approaches—by incorporating the dynamics of commodity prices over time and controlling for other economic factors—enhances forecast accuracy.

27, April 2023

Biya and Déby’s feud: Minister Ngoh Ngoh en route to Chad ⁰

Cameroon’s Minister of State and Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh on Wednesday departed to N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, to meet President of Chad’s Transitional Military Council Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, Cameroon presidency said in a statement.

The statement said Ngoh was a “special envoy” of President Paul Biya.

The visit comes six days after Chad recalled its ambassador to neighboring Cameroon following an escalation of a dispute over the sale by ExxonMobil of its oil assets in both countries to Savannah Energy, a British oil company.

According to local media, Ngoh and Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno will discuss how to resolve the dispute “amicably.”

Source: Xinhuanet