News

14, April 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: VP Yerima tells Biya “You won’t win in Ambazonia” ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima has praised Ambazonia fighters’ bravery in countering La Republique du Cameroun’s aggression in the entire Ambaland and advised the 89-year-old French Cameroun dictator Paul Biya to end a war he well knows he cannot win.

The exiled Ambazonia leader made the comments during a zoom meeting with some county heads on the state of the Southern Cameroons resistance on Monday.

Yerima stated that the deliberate silence of French Cameroun’s Minister Paul Atanga Nji of Territorial Administration and Joseph Beti Assomo of Defense is an indication that Yaoundé is losing the war in Southern Cameroons.

The Ambazonian leader wondered aloud why Biya and his criminal gang in French Cameroun were still going ahead with the war in Southern Cameroons that they already know there is no possibility to win.

Elsewhere in his comments, Vice President Dabney Yerima said there was need for the two Cameroons to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Yerima also hailed the constructive discussions going on in Europe aimed at reuniting the Southern Cameroons diaspora as a very good development.

By Chi Prudence Asong

13, April 2022

Four French, one Belgian among 10 dead in Egypt bus crash ⁰

Four French tourists and one Belgian were among 10 people killed in a bus crash Wednesday in Egypt, whose travel industry is only just emerging from years of political upheaval and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fourteen others — eight French and six Belgians — were taken to hospital with “broken bones, bruises and superficial injuries” but all were in a stable condition, the governor of the southern province of Aswan said.

The other five people killed were all Egyptian — the bus driver, his assistant and the tour guide, as well as two people in the other vehicle, a statement from the public prosecution said.

The Belgian foreign ministry confirmed to AFP that one of its citizens died and others were injured.

The accident occurred early Wednesday morning when the bus collided with a pick-up as it was transporting the tourists on the 300 kilometre (186 mile) road journey between Aswan and the famed Abu Simbel temple further south.

An AFP photographer saw what remained of the burnt-out vehicles lying by the roadside.

The prosecution ordered an “urgent investigation” to determine “the cause and circumstances of the accident and those responsible”.

Crashes are relatively common in Egypt, where many roads are in disrepair and traffic regulations frequently ignored.

Some 7,000 people died in road accidents in the country in 2020, according to official figures.

Vital tourism industry

The Abu Simbel temple was moved from its original location in the 1960s under the rule of president Gamal Abdel Nasser to make way for the construction of the Aswan High Dam.

Egypt had begun reviving its vital tourism industry by promoting its ancient heritage, after the country’s 2011 revolution and ensuing unrest struck the sector.

But the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the subsequent global travel bans resulted in a plunge in tourism revenues to $4 billion, from $13 billion the previous year.

The sector employs some two million people in a country of 103 million and generates more than 10 percent of GDP.

In August 2021 Russia resumed flights to Egyptian resorts, six years after a Russian airliner crashed after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has yet again cut off much of the flow of tourists to Egypt, as the two countries accounted for about 40 percent of visitors prior to the war.

The current administration of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has invested heavily in promoting tourism, and has organised major events in a bid to attract visitors.

Last year, the North African country staged a procession of floats carrying the mummified remains of 22 pharaohs, including Egypt’s most powerful ancient queen, to a new resting place in Cairo.

Since the start of April, visitors from dozens of additional countries have been permitted to obtain visas on arrival to Egypt, rather than applying in advance.

While attacks on tourists have largely ceased since they peaked in the 1990s, deadly incidents have occurred.

And in February 2019, a German woman and two Egyptian children were killed when a building collapsed in a residential neighbourhood of the southern city of Luxor.

Source: AFP

13, April 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Four prison officers killed in Amba attack in Bui ⁰

Four prison officers were killed on Tuesday in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone region of Northwest after their convoy was attacked by gunmen, local and security sources said.

Gunmen ambushed the convoy of the prison officers in Bui, a division of the region Tuesday afternoon and killed all of them.

“They were returning from installing a new prison superintendent in another village of the region. Theodore Kiga, who is the chief prison superintendent of the region, and three other prison officers were killed in the attack,” a senior army official who asked not to be named told Xinhua by phone.

It is unclear who organized the ambush, but separatist fighters are known to be operating in the locality, the source said.

The army was in pursuit of the gunmen who escaped to the bush after the attack, according to officials in the region.

Separatist fighters have been clashing with government forces in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest since 2017 in a bid to create an independent nation in the regions they called “Ambazonia.”

Source: Xinhuanet

12, April 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Manyu Francophone SDO narrowly escapes death in Nchang ⁰

The Senior Divisional Officer for Manyu, Oum II Joseph has narrowly escaped death in the hands of Ambazonia fighters in Nchang village some few kilometers away from Mamfe town.

The pot belly SDO was lucky after Amba fighters’ raided Nchang village during the civil administrator’s so-called Meet- The- People’s Tour visit.

An eyewitness told Cameroon Concord News Mamfe correspondent that the incident happened late today and that two Ambazonia fighters were killed by Cameroon government forces. We gathered that the SDO escaped unhurt.

A Cameroon government security source in Mamfe confirmed the incident to Cameroon Concord News. He said soldiers succeeded in rescuing the SDO from the armed Amba fighters.

By Kinsley Betek

12, April 2022

US: Multiple people shot in New York subway station, explosives found ⁰

Multiple people were shot and at least 13 were injured on Tuesday in a New York City subway station, the fire department said, in the latest spasm of violence in the city’s sprawling transit system.

The shootings occurred during the morning commute at the 36th Street subway station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.

CNN and other media reported that at least five people were shot, citing sources in the New York Fire Department, but Reuters could not immediately confirm the specific number. It was not immediately clear whether the number of injured people included those who were shot.

The whereabouts of the perpetrator were unclear.

Juliana Fonda, a broadcast engineer at radio station WNYC, told local news website Gothamist that she heard shots while in an adjoining subway car.

“The reaction of the passengers was terrifying because they were trying to get into our car away from something that was happening in the back of the train,” she said. “None of us in the front of the train knew what was going on, but people were pounding and looking behind them, running, trying to get onto the train.”

She added that she heard “a lot of loud pops” and that there was smoke in another train car.

Authorities shut down a dozen or so blocks around the 36th Street subway station and another nearby station, and closed off the immediate area with yellow crime scene tape.

The New York Police Department warned people to stay away from the area, which is known for its thriving Chinatown, views of the Statue of Liberty and Industry City, a sprawling warehouse district that has become home to many creative businesses.

In recent months New York has experienced a rise in gun violence in general and a spate of attacks in the city’s transit system, one of the world’s oldest and most extensive.

Local and federal law enforcement officials gathered at the scene, watched by small crowds of people on sidewalks huddled against buildings in a drizzle. Many officers could be seen donning heavy-duty armor and helmets.

Konrad Aderer, a commuter, was in the stairwell about to enter the 36th Street station when he saw a man with bleeding legs explaining what had happened to a worker at the station booth.

“He just said that there was a lot of people bleeding,” Aderer told Fox News in a phone interview. “He took it upon himself to make sure that people were alerted, despite being injured.”

The fire department initially said that undetonated explosive devices were found at the station, but police later said in a Tweet there were no active explosive devices.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was being briefed on the situation, his press secretary said in a statement shared on Twitter. Adams recently tested positive for COVID-19.

(Source: Reuters)

12, April 2022

BIR soldiers arrest over dozen Southern Cameroonians in Bamenda ⁰

Soldiers of the Rapid Intervention Battalion have arrested at least 12 Southern Cameroonians during overnight raids across Bamenda, the chief city in the North West region.

Our correspondent in Bamenda citing security and local sources reported on Monday that Cameroon government forces had rounded up the Southern Cameroonians mainly in Bamenda and nearby towns, including Bali and Batibo, overnight on Sunday.

The troops loyal to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Yaoundé also detained a Southern Cameroonian at Tjunction and some others at Below Foncha Street in Bamenda.

The Francophone soldiers also searched and vandalized the family house of several of the Southern Cameroonians before detaining them.

According Ambazonia Interim Government sources, the French Cameroun army raids, which occur mostly in areas under the full control of Biya regime forces, are conducted arbitrarily and with no search warrant.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

10, April 2022

Biya regime says Amba fighters attack Mbororo ethnic community ⁰

Cameroonian authorities said Friday that separatists had attacked a village on the Nigerian border earlier in the week, with local officials saying they torched at least 12 homes and killed six people. Authorities say the rebels appeared to be targeting members of the Mbororo ethnic group, who the separatists accuse of collaborating with government troops.

The Cameroonian military said separatists shot indiscriminately in the air and torched houses in Mbonhong, a western village in Ndu district on the border with Nigeria. The military did not say how many houses were burned nor how many people were killed or wounded.

Separatists have shared videos of the attack on Mbonhong village on social media including WhatsApp and Facebook.

About 15 separatists in the videos say that they are avenging abuses committed against them by Cameroon’s military and charge the government forces are using homes, farms and cattle ranches of ethnic Mbororo and Fulani as military bases. The fighters are seen torching about eight houses.

Nkwenti Simon Dooh, the highest-ranking government official in Donga Mantung, the division where Ndu is located, told Cameroon state broadcaster CRTV that a week hardly goes by without separatists attacking Mbororo.

“Armed groups benefit from the fact that the Mbororo populations are scattered over the hills to cause so many atrocities,” he said. “They [separatists] carried away many herds of their [Mbororo] cattle, looted, killed and burnt most of their structures.”

Dooh said that besides deploying the military to protect Mbororo, the government asked the ethnic group to create militias to collaborate with government troops in protecting goods and people.

Cameroon’s National Institute of Statistics estimates that there are over a million Mbororo in the central African country. More than 70% of the Mbororo are cattle ranchers owning about 70% of the estimated 3 million cattle in the English-speaking regions.

Mohammed Umaru Abubakar, a Mbororo rights activist and member of the Human Rights Committee of the Mbororo Cultural and Development Association,

said Mbororo are victims of brutality because the ethnic group has refused to support separatists fighting to carve out an independent English-speaking state in the majority French-speaking Cameroon.

Abubakar said the Mbororo are one of the ethnic groups that has suffered most from separatist brutality within the past four years.

“Three thousand eight hundred forty-two cattle were killed or seized or killed by the separatists, and over 5,000 cows have left the Northwest to other [safer] regions, while others [cattle] left for Nigeria,” Abubakar said. “Over 195 million [have] been taken away from Mbororo people in the name of ransom. As of date, the statistics we have is about 325 Mbororo people that [have been] murdered by the separatists.”

Abubakar said Cameroon should compensate Mbororo who have lost their cattle and protect ethnic group members from separatist attacks, looting and killing.

Separatists say they do not specifically target Mbororo, but they target all individuals and groups who collaborate with the Cameroon military. The United Nations says the Cameroon separatist crisis that turned into an armed conflict in 2017 has killed at least 3,300 people, and internally displaced some 750,000.

Source: VOA

10, April 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Amba commander killed in infighting in Bui ⁰

Security and local sources said on Saturday that a notorious separatist commander has been killed in Cameroon’s war-torn Anglophone region of Northwest in clashes between rival separatist groups.

The commander who was identified as ‘field marshal Insobu’ was killed in Bui division of the region late Friday after he attempted to attack another separatist group.

Separatist fighters released a video of him on social media saying they were celebrating the “death of a traitor”.

“The terrorist commander was responsible for countless killing and abductions of civilians and soldiers. He blocked a major highway in the region for over five years causing untold suffering. Civilians are actually celebrating his death,” a senior military official in the region who asked not to be named told Xinhua.

It is unclear whether other fighters were killed in the clashes.

Infighting among separatist fighters has caused the death of over 100 fighters since an armed separatist conflict erupted in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest in 2017, according to security reports.

Source: Xinhuanet

10, April 2022

Douala: Arbitrarily detained person dies of cholera, other detainees at risk ⁰

At least six inmates at the New Bell prison in Douala have died of cholera since 18 February last. The latest, Rodrigue Ndagueho Koufet, who died on 7 April, had been held in arbitrary detention since September 2020 for being involved in peaceful protests.

“The Cameroonian authorities must urgently take all necessary health measures to ensure that detainees suffering from cholera and other medical conditions have prompt access to adequate medical care” Samira Daoud, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa

It has been confirmed that Rodrigue Ndagueho Koufet died of cholera on 7 April at Douala Hospital, where he was taken from the city’s central prison and chained to his hospital bed. According to the judgment, which we have seen, the Douala Military Court sentenced him to three years in prison and a 200,000 CFA franc fine on 7 December 2021 for ‘co-action of insurrection, gathering, meetings and public demonstrations’, having been arrested in September 2020 during peaceful protests of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC). Others detained for the same reasons are also likely to be in a worrying health situation.

The authorities must also release all those arbitrarily detained, including detainees from the English-speaking regions and members of the main opposition party, the MRC, who have been arrested over the past five years for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”

Culled from Amnesty International

8, April 2022

World food prices hit record high over Ukraine war ⁰

World food prices hit an all-time high in March as Russia’s military operation of Ukraine sent “shocks” through markets for staple grains and vegetable oils, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said on Friday.

The disruption in export flows resulting from the February 24 military operation and international sanctions against Russia has spurred fears of a global hunger crisis, especially across the Middle East and Africa, where the knock-on effects are already playing out.

Russia and Ukraine, whose vast grain-growing regions are among the world’s main breadbaskets, account for a huge share of the globe’s exports in several major commodities, including wheat, vegetable oil and corn.

“World food commodity prices made a significant leap in March to reach their highest levels ever, as war in the Black Sea region spread shocks through markets for staple grains and vegetable oils,” the FAO said in a statement.

The FAO’s food price index, which had already reported a record in February, surged by 12.6 percent last month, “making a giant leap to a new highest level since its inception in 1990”, the UN agency said.

The index, a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, averaged 159.3 points in March.

The jump includes new all-time highs for vegetable oils, cereals and meats, the FAO said, adding that prices of sugar and dairy products “also rose significantly”.

– Famine fears –

Russia and Ukraine together accounted for around 30 percent and 20 percent of global wheat and maize exports respectively, over the past three years, the FAO said.

The war continues to rage as sowing season has started in Ukraine.

Wheat prices rose by almost 20 percent, with the problem exacerbated by concerns over crop conditions in the United States, the organization said.

The FAO’s vegetable oil price index surged by 23.2 percent, driven by higher quotations for sunflower seed oil, of which Ukraine is the world’s leading exporter.

Spanish supermarkets have rationed the sale of sunflower oil to stop customers stockpiling over shortage fears due to the war.

The United States has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of creating “this global food crisis”.

France has warned that the war has increased the risk of famine around the world.

The conflict has also sent oil and gas prices through the roof, causing inflation to rise further across the world and raising concerns that it could derail global economic growth.

(Source: AFP)