News

Yerima to Amba Fighters: Listen to your legitimate Interim Gov’t or surrender to the enemy

29, November 2021

Yerima to Amba Fighters: Listen to your legitimate Interim Gov’t or surrender to the enemy 0

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government (IG) Dabney Yerima sent a strong message late on Sunday to Ambazonia fighters in Ground Zero: Listen to your legitimate Ambazonia Interim Government or surrender to the French Cameroun enemy.

“I say to you all Ground Zero commanders and brave fighters: Listen to your Interim Government or surrender to the enemy. It is the hard choice you have to make now if we as a people must get to Buea,” Vice President Dabney Yerima said during a hard-hitting address to the Southern Cameroons exiled war cabinet meeting that held late on Sunday.

Dabney Yerima said the Department of Foreign Affairs has tried to establish unity to the divisive crisis that has rocked the Southern Cameroons front line leaders in the diaspora but blamed many of the groups for failing to respond to the overtures.

“As your Vice President, I have no other option but to turn to you fighters in Ground Zero and to inform you that our job in the diaspora now is to help in providing you with the support needed as our struggle is a war with only one outcome: Our victory and the recognition of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia,” Yerima said.

The war in Southern Cameroons has created a business empire for top military officers in Yaounde. About forty thousand Southern Cameroons civilians have lost their lives in this war. More than a million persons have fled to Nigeria and other countries as refugees, and millions have been made IDPs. More than 600 towns and villages and countless homes have been burnt down by French Cameroun troops. Hundreds of females have been raped (a good number deliberately infected with HIV and other STDs), scores of children killed in targeted killings, food and food crops and livestock destroyed to impose conditions of famine, water sources defiled and polluted to provoke a pestilence, and mass graves punctuate the landscape.

Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed in the Southern Cameroons by French Cameroun military which systematically continues to kill women, teenagers, and even babies, the elderly, the infirm. Presidents Emmanuel Macron, Paul Biya and Buhari bears direct responsibility for these heinous crimes.

The UN Security Council has so far failed to assume its responsibility under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations to deal with French Cameroun’s colonial war in the Southern Cameroons. In the circumstances, it is not inconceivable that the Southern Cameroons abandons the self-defence posture to which it has so far restrained itself, in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. It may eventually go on the offensive and broaden its offensive posture by targeting economic and social infrastructure in French Cameroun that support that country’s war effort, in the same way social and economic infrastructure in the Southern Cameroons continues to be targeted by the French Cameroun army. The objective of this new offensive would be to bring it home to Macron and Biya that their fanciful claim that “l’Ambazonieestcamerounaise” (Ambazonia belongs to Cameroun) is a pipe dream and that pursuing it will be very painful for French Cameroun in 2022 in the same way as the French claim that “l’Algerieestfranaise” (Algeria belongs to France) was for France in 1962.  The people of the Southern Cameroons strongly reject any idea or suggestion, explicit or implicit, that the Southern Cameroons is an area under French influence given that the Southern Cameroons does not have and has never had any ties, colonial or otherwise, with France. 

By Isong Asu and Chi Prudence Asong

French Cameroun: Boko Haram kills three Cameroon gov’t army soldiers in the Far North

29, November 2021

French Cameroun: Boko Haram kills three Cameroon gov’t army soldiers in the Far North 0

Three  Cameroon government army soldiers were killed and several others wounded in separate attacks staged by the Islamic sect Boko Haram in the Far North region bordering the Federal Republic of Nigeria on Sunday.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered from security sources that the Nigerian militants ambushed the Cameroon military convoy in Zelevet locality in the Mayo-Moskota district in Mayo-Tsanaga Division late on Sunday.

A well-placed source deep within the Cameroon army revealed that  Lieutenant Djika Koulagna was one of the two soldiers killed following the attack  by the terrorist sect.

At press time, we learnt that another Cameroon soldier was killed in an attack on a military camp in Fotokol in the Logone-et-Chari Division.

For more than six years, several localities in the Far North region have been under attack by the Nigerian Islamist sect with support from anti President Biya groups in the Far North region.

According to United Nations, nearly 40,000 people have been killed in 7 years in the Lake Chad Basin and 3 million have fled their homes.

By Rita Akana

S.African president wants ‘urgent’ lifting of travel bans

28, November 2021

S.African president wants ‘urgent’ lifting of travel bans 0

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday called on countries to “immediately and urgently” reverse scientifically “unjustified” travel bans linked to the discovery of the new coronavirus variant Omicron.

Dozens of nations from Europe to Asia have blacklisted South Africa and its neighbours since South African scientists flagged Omicron on November 25.

The flight bans have angered several African leaders.

“We call upon all those countries that have imposed travel bans on our country and our southern African sister countries to immediately and urgently reverse their decisions,” Ramaphosa said in his first address to the nation following last week’s detection of the new variant.

The World Health Organization has labelled Omicron a variant of concern, while scientists are still assessing its virulence.

A “deeply disappointed” Ramaphosa argued that the ban was “not informed by science”.

The countries that have already imposed travel restrictions on southern Africa include key travel hub Qatar, the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Netherlands.

‘Afrophobia’

Earlier Sunday, Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera accused Western countries of “Afrophobia” for shutting their borders.

And in Botswana, the other southern African country to detect the strain — among a group of foreign diplomatic visitors in the first instance — two ministers cautioned against “geo-politicising this virus”.

“We are concerned that there seem to have been attempts to stigmatise the country where it was detected,” Health Minister Edwin Dikoloti, said on Sunday.

The head of the WHO in Africa was equally worried.

“With the Omicron variant now detected in several regions of the world, putting in place travel bans that target Africa attacks global solidarity,” said WHO regional director general Matshidiso Moeti in a statement.

Ramaphosa warned that the travel ban would “further damage the economies (and) undermine their ability to respond to and recover from the pandemic”.

South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised country, is struggling with slow economic growth and a more than 34 percent unemployment rate.

The travel curbs are another major blow to its key tourism industry, which had set high hopes on the upcoming southern hemisphere summer.

‘Unjustified restrictions’

Ramaphosa blasted the G20 countries for abandoning commitments made at a meeting in Rome last month to support the recovery of the tourism sector in developing countries.

On Sunday, he added: “Instead of prohibiting travel, the rich countries of the world need to support the efforts of developing economies to access and to manufacture enough vaccine doses for their people without delay.

“These restrictions are unjustified.”

Ramaphosa called on rich countries to stop fuelling vaccine inequality, describing jabs as the “most powerful tool” to limit Omicron’s transmission.

He once again appealed to South Africans to get their shots, and said the government was considering making vaccines mandatory for certain activities and locations in a bid to increase uptake.

“Vaccines do work,” he said. “Vaccines are saving lives.”

The country is Africa’s worst hit by Covid, with around 2.9 million cases and 89,797 deaths reported to date.

Omicron is believed to be fuelling a rise in infections, with 1,600 new cases recorded on average in the past seven days compared to 500 the previous week.

Source: AFP

France on the ropes: Two killed as Africans confront military convoy

28, November 2021

France on the ropes: Two killed as Africans confront military convoy 0

At least two people have been killed and 18 others wounded after French forces fired shots to disperse angry protesters blocking a French military convoy in western Niger.

The armored vehicles and logistics trucks had crossed the border on Friday after being blocked in Burkina Faso for a week by demonstrations there against French forces’ failure to stop mounting violence by Takfiri militants.

Anger has been rising against the French military presence in Niger, Burkina Faso and other countries in West Africa’s Sahel region. 

Last weekend, hundreds of people in the Burkinabe city of Kaya blocked the French convoy, which is on its way from Ivory Coast to Mali.

It was able to leave Burkina Faso on Friday but ran into new protests on Saturday morning less than 30 km across the border in the western Niger town of Tera, where it was confronted by protesters.

Video shared by a local official showed the protesters chanting “Down with France,” as black smoke rose from a burning barricade.

“In its attempt to extricate itself, it (the French forces) used force. Sadly, we deplore the death of two people and 18 injuries, 11 of them serious,” Niger’s interior ministry said in a statement.

French military spokesperson Pascal Ianni admitted that soldiers had “fired warning shots” and tear gas at protesters, but dismissed as “false information” reports on social media that French forces had killed civilians in Tera.

Ianni said the convoy eventually crossed the town and continued toward the capital, Niamey.

France intervened in Mali in 2013 to purportedly beat back militants who had seized the desert north, before deploying soldiers across the Sahel. While it has deployed more troops, violence has continued to intensify and spread in the region.

In the demonstrations in Burkina Faso and elsewhere, protesters have cited widespread belief that France is secretly supporting the militants to justify its continued military presence in its former colonies.

Rise of anti-colonial sentiments

France has been one of the world’s colonizing countries that after many years of slavery still controls countries spread over more than 12 territories and treats their people as second-class citizens.

The Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe and nearby Martinique have recently been wracked by rioting and strikes that reflect long-running frustrations over inequality with the French mainland.

France’s minister for overseas affairs, Sebastien Lecornu, on Friday said Paris was ready to discuss some autonomy for Guadeloupe, but the overnight offer drew sharp criticism Saturday from conservative and far right candidates for France’s April presidential election.

Guadeloupe uses the euro currency and has close political ties with the mainland. But high unemployment in Guadeloupe and Martinique, high costs of living and lingering anger over historical abuses have prompted some local officials to demand change.

A third of the Guadeloupe population lives below the poverty line, and unemployment rate is 17%. The cost of living, meanwhile, is high because the island relies heavily on imports from the mainland. Water supplies have been a major problem in recent years because of obsolete pipes.

Some residents denounce a relationship with Paris reminiscent of colonial times, and note an ongoing scandal over the use of a dangerous pesticide on islands in the Antilles for years after it was banned on the mainland.

Many people were systematically exposed to toxic pesticides used in banana plantations in the 1970s in Martinique and Guadeloupe.

The product was banned in the US in 1976 and in France in 1990, but special provisions were made for its continued use in the Caribbean territories until 1993.

There have been numerous attempts at autonomy since the Second World War, though none have been successful. The anger of people living in Guadeloupe is because a country 7,000 kilometers away is governing them, constantly treating them as second-class citizens.

Guadeloupe receives 972 million euros from the EU each year, but its youth-unemployment rate has hovered around 50 percent for decades.

Source: Presstv

Several Southern Cameroonians injured by Cameroon gov’t forces in Kendem, Batibo and Bali

26, November 2021

Several Southern Cameroonians injured by Cameroon gov’t forces in Kendem, Batibo and Bali 0

At least 45 Southern Cameroonians including women and children have been injured by soldiers loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde on the Mamfe-Bamenda highway.

A Roman Catholic cleric cited sources in Kendem, Batibo and Bali as saying that 45 Southern Cameroonians were hit by bullets fired by Cameroon government troops fighting against Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards who recently blocked the main road linking Bamenda to Mamfe.

The prelate said that the 45 Southern Cameroonians had also suffered breathing difficulties due to inhaling French made tear gas used by the Cameroon government army soldiers against the Amba fighters in Kendem, Batibo and Bali.

Since the killing of two primary school pupils by Francophone army soldiers in Buea and Bamenda, Southern Cameroons has seen intensified clashes between Cameroon government troops and Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces.

Also in Ekondo Titi, Cameroon government troops used live ammunition and bullets against students in Government Bilingual High School and blamed the attack on Amba fighters.

The war in Southern Cameroons has created a business empire for top military officers in Yaounde. About forty thousand Southern Cameroons civilians have lost their lives in this war. More than a million persons have fled to Nigeria and other countries as refugees, and millions have been made IDPs. More than 600 towns and villages and countless homes have been burnt down by French Cameroun troops. Hundreds of females have been raped (a good number deliberately infected with HIV and other STDs), scores of children killed in targeted killings, food and food crops and livestock destroyed to impose conditions of famine, water sources defiled and polluted to provoke a pestilence, and mass graves punctuate the landscape.

Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed in the Southern Cameroons by French Cameroun military which systematically continues to kill women, teenagers, and even babies, the elderly, the infirm. Presidents Emmanuel Macron, Paul Biya and Buhari bears direct responsibility for these heinous crimes.

The UN Security Council has so far failed to assume its responsibility under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations to deal with French Cameroun’s colonial war in the Southern Cameroons. In the circumstances, it is not inconceivable that the Southern Cameroons abandons the self-defence posture to which it has so far restrained itself, in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. It may eventually go on the offensive and broaden its offensive posture by targeting economic and social infrastructure in French Cameroun that support that country’s war effort, in the same way social and economic infrastructure in the Southern Cameroons continues to be targeted by the French Cameroun army. The objective of this new offensive would be to bring it home to Macron and Biya that their fanciful claim that “l’Ambazonieestcamerounaise” (Ambazonia belongs to Cameroun) is a pipe dream and that pursuing it will be very painful for French Cameroun in 2022 in the same way as the French claim that “l’Algerieestfranaise” (Algeria belongs to France) was for France in 1962.  The people of the Southern Cameroons strongly reject any idea or suggestion, explicit or implicit, that the Southern Cameroons is an area under French influence given that the Southern Cameroons does not have and has never had any ties, colonial or otherwise, with France.  

By Fon Lawrence with additional reporting from the Camcordnews desk

General accused of torture appointed head of Interpol

25, November 2021

General accused of torture appointed head of Interpol 0

An Emirati general accused of torture was elected president of Interpol Thursday, the global police agency said, despite the concerns of human rights organisations and members of the European Parliament.

“Mr Ahmed Nasser AL RAISI of the United Arab Emirates has been elected to the post of President (4-yr term),” Interpol said on Twitter.

General Al-Raisi, head of the United Arab Emirates’ security forces, will take on a largely ceremonial and voluntary role.

It is Interpol Secretary General Juergen Stock who handles day-to-day management of the organisation. Stock was given a second five-year term in 2019.

Mr Ahmed Nasser AL RAISI of the United Arab Emirates has been elected to the post of President (4-yr term). pic.twitter.com/pJVGfJ4iqi

— INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) November 25, 2021

Complaints of “torture” were filed against the Emirati general in recent months in France and Turkey, which is hosting Interpol’s general assembly in Istanbul this week.

The appointment follows generous funding by the UAE for the Lyon, France-based body and accusations Abu Dhabi has abused Interpol’s system of so-called “red notices” for wanted suspects to persecute political dissidents.

Three European Parliament members wrote a letter dated November 11 to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to warn of the impact the general’s appointment would have on Interpol.

“The election of General Al Raisi would undermine the mission and reputation of Interpol and severely affect the ability of the organisation to carry out its mission effectively,” they wrote.

And in October 2020, 19 NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, expressed concern about the possible choice of Raisi, whom they described as being “part of a security apparatus that continues to systematically target peaceful critics”.

Source: AFP

Southern Cameroons Crisis: IG condemns GBHS Ekondo Titi attack

24, November 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: IG condemns GBHS Ekondo Titi attack 0

Southern Cameroons exiled leader Dabney Yerima has denounced as a “crime” the attack on Government Bilingual High School Ekondo Titi that claimed the lives of two teachers and three students.

“Ambazonians, I speak to you with a heart filled with grief because our guns and bombs should target the enemy and not our own people” Yerima said in an audio message.

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government said Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards must arrest those responsible for the GBHS  attack and hand them over to the paramount ruler of Ekondo Titi.

In his address to the Southern Cameroons war cabinet today, Dabney Yerima said the GBHS Ekondo Titi attack was a crime depriving children of a bright future.

Unidentified armed men attacked Government Bilingual High School Ekondo Titi during lectures and placed bombs that killed two teachers and three students.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that other academic establishments in Ndian Division were also targeted by the armed group.

By Rita Akana

UN says West Africa has the highest number of child soldiers

23, November 2021

UN says West Africa has the highest number of child soldiers 0

Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou-Children in West Africa and Central Africa involved in conflict are the most employed by armed groups in the world and the most victims of sexual violence, a report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund on Tuesday. Says. ..

Over the past five years, more than 21,000 children have been hired by government forces and armed groups in an increasing number of conflicts in the region, according to the report. In addition, more than 2,200 children in the region have been victims of sexual violence since 2016, the report said.

According to the report, more than 3,500 children have been kidnapped, making it the second most abducted area in the world.

“For children of today’s and future generations, the numbers and trends are very worrisome,” UNICEF’s Director of West Africa and Central Africa, Marie Pierre Poirier, told The Associated Press.

“The serious violations against children committed by the parties to the conflict did not stop throughout West Africa and Central Africa, but also surged over the past five years, increasing the total number of serious violations confirmed by 50%. “She said.

Since 2005, the United Nations has established a system to monitor and report serious violations of children, including recruitment, abduction, rape, and attacks on schools and hospitals, one in four violations worldwide has occurred in West Africa and Central Africa. The report states that it was done.

In conflict-affected countries such as Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, violence has devastating humanitarian consequences for children and communities, and pandemics exacerbate the situation. The United Nations said.

More than 57 million children need humanitarian assistance, which has doubled since last year as a result of conflict and viruses.

While some countries have been concerned for more than a decade, according to the United Nations Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict, there are three new areas of concern: Burkina Faso, Cameroon and the countries around Lake Chad.

Conflicts in four countries across the Lake Chad basin (Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria) have evacuated about 3 million people and killed thousands in the Zihadist rebellion this year in Burkina Faso. Has increased at least 5 times. According to information AP saw in an unpublished report by international aid and conflict experts, from four documented cases across the last year.

During the June deadly attack in the Sahel region of the country where at least 160 people were killed, children were seen with jihadists and “Alahu Akbar” (in Arabic) while burning their homes. God is wonderful).

Children associated with armed groups are often exposed to “unbearable levels of violence,” which can be followed by other violations such as abduction, sexual violence, and the killing and disability of children before and after their recruitment. .. Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba told The Associated Press.

The United Nations calls on the parties to the conflict to prevent and end violations against children and hold the perpetrators accountable. It encourages aid groups to increase documenting of violations, prevent them, and work to respond to them. UNICEF states that more than $ 92 million is needed to protect children in emergencies in West and Central Africa, more than half of which has not yet been funded.

Source: Illinoisnewstoday

Yaounde: Special Status is to weaken the Ambazonia Interim Gov’t, subjugate Southern Cameroonians

23, November 2021

Yaounde: Special Status is to weaken the Ambazonia Interim Gov’t, subjugate Southern Cameroonians 0

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government says French Cameroun’s main objective out of the war in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is to undermine the Ambazonia Interim Government and subdue the people of Southern Cameroons.

“The 1953 Eastern Regional Crisis in Enugu did not have any spilled over effect into French Cameroun. Our leaders after the Mamfe Conference opted to remain close and intimate with East Cameroun but not at the expense of our sovereignty and dignity,” vice president Dabney Yerima said during a zoom ceremony in memory of the young school girl killed in Bamenda recently by a French Cameroun gendarme.

Yerima underlined that ever since Hon. Joseph Wirba left the French Cameroun National Assembly after he frequently criticized the war in Southern Cameroons as well as the brutal killing of thousands of innocent Southern Cameroons civilians, no other so-called Southern Cameroons CPDM MP has commented on the war including the murder of primary school pupils by French Cameroun uniform officers.

“Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and Joseph Beti Assomo are using the Francophone dominated army to kill our people and Philemon Yang, Atanga Nji, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Paul Tasong Victor Mengot and Elung Paul are applauding and passing for cabinet ministers. To me, they are insiders who are assisting La Republique and by extrapolation France to arrive at its goals,” Dabney Yerima pointed out.

Vice President Dabney Yerima stated that these French Cameroun surrogates are now quiet because they are watching Franck Biya who struggled to have Advance Level papers now coming into the political show in Yaoundé changing French Cameroun’s internal equations, and creating a new political structure with his visit to the new Sultan of Foumban in order to weaken the old generation and completely subjugate the people of Southern Cameroons.

“We advise the so-called Southern Cameroons CPDM political elites who seek to weaken the Ambazonia uprising to renounce their acts, as the Ambazonia Interim Government is well-established and deeply-rooted in Southern Cameroons, and no one can either depose it or downplay its role in getting Southern Cameroonians to Buea,” Dabney Yerima noted.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

At least 45 people killed in bus blaze in Bulgaria

23, November 2021

At least 45 people killed in bus blaze in Bulgaria 0

At least 45 people, including a dozen minors, were killed after a bus caught fire south of the Bulgarian capital early Tuesday morning, officials said.

A cause has yet to be determined but officials believe a fire broke out on board and the bus crashed into guardrails.

There were no other vehicles involved in the accident, which occurred around 2:00 am (2400 GMT) on a highway about 40 kilometres (26 miles) from Sofia, near the village of Bosnek.

“Of the victims … 12 in total were under the age of 18,” national police chief Stanimir Stanev said.

He told bTV television that 45 of the 52 people on the bus were killed.

Nikolay Nikolov, head of the Fire Safety and Civil Protection department at the interior ministry, told public broadcaster BNT that “seven passengers survived”.

They were taken to a hospital in the capital with serious burns, he added.

According to bTV, the bus was travelling from Turkey’s main city of Istanbul to Skopje in North Macedonia.

North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said the victims were probably fellow Macedonians.

“We don’t know if all the victims are from North Macedonia, but we assume so because the bus is registered in the country,” he said in an interview with Nova TV.

But police chief Stanev said while the two drivers of the bus were Macedonian, the passengers were Albanian.

“Initial information shows that 52 people were travelling in the bus, including two drivers with Macedonian nationality and 50 passengers with Albanian nationality,” he said.

Bulgaria’s interim Prime Minister Stefan Yanev and Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov rushed to the site of the crash Tuesday morning, while local media said that the North Macedonian and Albanian premiers were also on their way.

“It’s a terrifying picture in there. I haven’t seen anything like that before,” Rashkov told journalists at the site.

“Nobody can say for certain how many are there and who they were. The bodies are badly burned and have to be identified one by one,” he added.

Bulgaria has a history of deadly bus accidents. Seventeen Bulgarian tourists died in 2018 when their bus skidded on a wet road and overturned.

A total of 628 people died in road accidents in 2019 and 463 in 2020 in the country of 6.9 million people, according to official data. The accidents were often attributed to poor road conditions, outdated cars and speeding.

Source: AFP

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