On 13 February 2022, President Paul Biya, who has been head of state since November 1982, turned 89. He celebrated his 40th anniversary as head of state with a few hand-picked guests at his palace in Mvomeka’a in an event that revealed the dictator had symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, a brain condition that causes memory loss and impaired ability to think clearly.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered from a reliable source that the nation’s long-reigning leader often forgets that his eldest son Franck Biya and wife are members of his family. “The Franck Biya and wife issue are among other heartbreaking lapses” our source added.  

The French Cameroun political elite has occupied Etoudi for 40 years, ascending to power on November 6, 1982.  He is now showing many signs of slowing down and his health is seriously challenged mindful of his advanced age.

According to some medical experts, nearly all CPDM barons including National Assembly Speaker Cavaye Djibril over the age of 80 suffer from some form of dementia, and Alzheimer’s is the leading cause of dementia symptoms.

Cameroon Intelligence Report also learnt that in addition to forgetting some members of his own family, Paul Biya has recently been found by his tribal presidential security aides roaming aimlessly around the Mvomeka’a palace lost and confused.

Biya’s aides many of whom are blood relations to his wife Chantal Biya are desperately trying to hide the head of state’s shocking health crisis.

Chantal Biya is pushing him slowly but surely mostly behind the scenes into handing over major portions of his presidential duties to Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and the Biya family supported by their acolytes have been insisting on state radio and television that Biya is in excellent health, while admitting that he is inevitably becoming a little more frail because of his age.

Franck Biya is also said to be assuming an increased share of the presidential workload with some political commentators even projecting him as President Biya’s next-of-kin for Cameroon’s top job.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government has lambasted the presence of Francophone army soldiers in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, stressing that the troops have been deployed neither on the basis of a mandate from the British Southern Cameroons House of Chiefs nor at the official request from the Ambazonia Interim Government.

Dabney Yerima in a telephone conversation with Cameroon Concord News London Bureau Chief said the presence of French Cameroun troops in Southern Cameroons for over five decades is completely unacceptable.

Yerima pointed out that the British Southern Cameroons House of Chiefs never authorized Ahmadou Ahidjo or Paul Biya of French Cameroun to deployed Francophone servicemen and women to Ambazonia territory.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader then questioned the Biya French Cameroun strategy in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

“Biya and his French backed French Cameroun gang claims that the sole purpose of their presence in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is to fight terrorism, the people of Southern Cameroons would like to know how longer such a campaign would continue and what the tangible outcome is,” Dabney Yerima wondered aloud.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Isong Asu

The Ambazonia Interim Government (IG) has decried the recent attack on Southern Cameroonians in the city of Bamenda.

Reports said forces loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé attacked Southern Cameroons civilians in many neighborhoods in Bamenda, injuring several people and arresting others, including school children.

The Francophone army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons have brutally attacked innocent civilians drawing widespread condemnation from Church leaders.

Dabney Yerima, the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government described the recent killings in Bamenda as a brutal crime and a dangerous escalation, holding Biya and his Francophone political elites in Yaoundé responsible for its repercussions.

“Southern Cameroonians will not stand idly by and will vigorously continue their resistance against these brutal crimes, to protect the Federal Republic of Ambazonia,” Yerima added.

The month of March brought in bad news to many who have been monitoring the Southern Cameroons crisis which has already sent more than ten thousand Cameroonians to an early grave.

On Tuesday, there was a massive slaughter of army soldiers by Southern Cameroonian fighters in the country’s Northwest region. The dead included – Mbem Jean Pierre, Kamga Dieudonné, Ntieche Mefire Mohamed, Kamto Kamdem Fabice, Ntongfack Brice, Kameni Albert, Tchinda Antoine, Ninchue Blaise. One survivor, Baba Jean, successfully escaped to the Mesaje Brigade while one soldier is still missing. The hunting season is clearly open, and the world will very soon be seeing rivers of blood in that part of the country.

But the situation in the Northwest Region was reduced to a dress rehearsal when a massive IED explosion consumed a Divisional Officer, the Ekondo-Titi Mayor, soldiers and others who were part of a convoy that was rushing to Bekora, a small town located some 30 miles from Ekondo-Titi, to lay the groundwork for Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute’s visit which was planned for March 2022.

By Isong Asu with files from Fon Lawrence and Soter Agbaw-Ebai 

Three years ago, Akor Pelkings fled his home in western Cameroon, where a conflict raged between the security forces and rebels fighting for an independent state.

Today, the 25-year-old is one of 70 000 Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria, wondering in despair when they can return.

Yet they in turn are among a million people uprooted by a conflict which is now in its fifth year yet remains largely forgotten – even unknown – in the rest of the world.

The violence erupted in 2017, when militants declared an independent state in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions, home to most of the anglophone minority in the majority French-speaking country.

Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting, which according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) has killed more than 6 000 people.

Pelkings crossed into Nigeria, finding shelter in one of the refugee camps that have sprung up near the border regions, although they often have less international aid than in other conflict areas.

He said:

Why no one cares? Our lives are destroyed, and no one cares. The conflict went to days, to months, now to years.

In dozens of interviews with AFP, Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria described their experience.

A common thread emerged – a process of darkening fear, which began as neighbours, relatives and supporters of the anglophone secessionist movement were whisked away in police vans and were rarely heard of again.

Gerard Tiko’Or Akenji, who founded an agricultural cooperative at a camp operated by the UN refugee agency in Ogoja, eastern Nigeria, said the intimidation was unprovoked.

“They arrest so many youths from my community,” said Akenji, 45, who added that he had been picked up four times from the start of the conflict until he finally fled in March 2019.

Terror at night

“I left the country because of fear of death,” said Akenji.

“I always tied my sneakers, and lie on my bed with my legs down, and my door open, in case of any noise I have to run,” he said.

He added:

The sound of gun and explosives have killed many of old people, because they are very afraid.

Then the schools began to close as threats from separatists and the fear of violence kept students at home.

“At the beginning of the conflict, I had to stop going to high school,” said Pelkings, who dreamed of going to university but now raises chickens in this camp in Nigeria.

In September 2021, the start of the academic year, two-thirds of schools in the two English-speaking regions were closed, depriving 700 000 children and adolescents of education, according to the UN.

Hundreds of schools have been attacked there, according to the campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Almost all of those attacks were by armed separatist groups who refuse to allow French to be taught.

Even so, said a humanitarian source, “no one (in the camps) will tell you” that the separatists are to blame, because most of the refugees support their cause.

Childbirth alone

Access to health care has also deteriorated dramatically in English-speaking Cameroon.

Health centres have been attacked or occupied.

Chu Bernice Chang will never forget the circumstances of her first birth when at age 21 she delivered her girl, at home, without any help.

The clinic in her village was being used as a rear base for the Cameroonian army, she said.

According to the ICG, 250 villages have been destroyed in the conflict – a punishment for being suspected of helping one side or the other.

Actions of this kind were cited by many refugees as to why they left, sometimes fleeing from one day to the next.

“My village was attacked more than six times,” said Odilia Ntong, a 50-year-old. “They destroyed the house, the shooting, I had nothing, so left.”

For five days she moved through the bush with nine other women, hungry and sleeping on the ground before she managed to cross the border into Nigeria.

Ntong now lives alone in Takum, a small town in eastern Nigeria, in a tiny room that she rents for $3,60 a month.

To survive, she makes traditional hats that she sells on the market, and receives from the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, like all Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria, 2 600 naira (five euros) per month.

“It’s an invisible crisis,” said Roland Schoenbauer, the spokesperson for UNHCR in Nigeria.

“The number of refugees kept increasing since 2017, while the funds made available by donors have decreased.”

After five years of war, Pelkings sees little hope his life will improve.

“Here we are safe, but we are hungry,” Pelkings said. “Many of my friends are back in Cameroon. Some were killed, some are still in the bush.”

Source: AFP

The Ambazonia Interim Government has condemned the murder of a nurse in Bamenda by plain cloth police officers as a serious escalation that should be met with intensified resistance.

Vice President Dabney Yerima in a statement on Wednesday noted that the only way to protect the people of Southern Cameroons and deter the French backed French Cameroun occupation is by more force, according to the Ambazonia Department of Foreign Affairs.

The Dabney Yerima statement said the strongest response to the French Cameroun military would be to intensify attacks and inflict heavy losses on Cameroon government army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons.

The statement came as the Divisional Officer for Ekondo Titi Sub constituency TIMOTHÉE ABOLOA and the Municipal Administrator Nanji Kenneth including three servicemen were killed by a roadside bomb.

The war in Southern Cameroons was started by a head of state whose collaborators have always projected him as the strong man, ordained by God to be eternal not only on earth but also on the throne, but the last years have proven that eternity here on earth is simply a mirage and that no man, including Paul Biya, born of a woman, will ever be physically eternal in a world nobody really understands.

For five years now, Biya has seen 4000 Cameroon government troops killed in Southern Cameroons and his energy waning. Though he seems to believe his own lies that he is still energetic, many events including the Africa Cup of Nations have continued to remind the 89 year-old dictator that time is running out for him.

Both French and Southern Cameroonians have seen him struggle to walk and when he dares to walk, he trembles like a 7-month baby who wants to try his luck at walking.

As his energy levels decline, so too do his muscles fall apart and that makes it hard for his clothes to fit him.

Recently his own trouser sought to take French leave of him during an event where there were thousands of guests at the Unity Palace.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Five people including the Divisional Officer for Ekondo Titi Sub Division were killed when their vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb during an ambush by Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards.

Fighters of the Southern Cameroons Self Defense Group reportedly opened fire on the Divisional Officer’s vehicle after it ran over an explosive during the DO’s so-called meet-the-people tour.

Cameroon Concord News understands there was no Cameroon government Service Unit patrol team close to the area during the attack.

Our correspondent in Mundemba, the chief town in Ndian Division said the Amba fighters used guns and rocket-propelled grenades during the assault on the DO and his entourage.

Ndian Division is prone to Ambazonia raids over its long and porous sea border with the Federal Republic of Nigeria, where the Ambazonia Interim Government controls swathes of countryside and the Biya Francophone government authority is weak.

Other areas in the entire Southern Cameroons are also susceptible to attacks and the French Cameroun officials are often quick to blame Ambazonia fighters for the assaults.

Cameroon government army soldiers have suffered several deadly attacks by Ambazonia fighters in retaliation for Yaoundé sending troops into British Southern Cameroons some five years ago.

By Rita Akana

Their homes are a scattering of huts made of branches and dry leaves that seem to almost dissolve into the arid landscape.

A group of men sit on a rug, conversing in the shade of a tree, while women perching on stones under the scorching Sahel sun prepare a meal with the few ingredients they have to hand, as children play nearby.

These are some of the 4,000 ethnic Arabs in a makeshift camp at Bogo in Cameroon’s Far North region.

They fled after violence erupted near Kousseri, a river town about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Lake Chad.

The fighting flared in August, then again in December, pitting Choa Arab herders against Mousgoum fishermen in a fight over access to water, a precious but dwindling resource in this region.

The Mousgoum dig pools to capture water and keep fish — a practice that often causes friction with Arab herders seeking water points for cattle, but which this time spiralled out of control.

At least 67 people died and hundreds were injured, the town’s cattle market was destroyed and around 100,000 people fled.

Many crossed into neighbouring Chad or headed towards Maroua, the Far North’s capital, lying more than 800 kilometres (500 miles) northeast of the capital Yaounde.

Mahamat Sale, 60, is the leader of the group in Bogo, who say they walked some 175 kilometres (110 miles) to reach a place they consider safe. They have lost everything.

“We prefer to stay here rather than go back,” said Sale. “Here, we are tolerated. Over there, the Mousgoums consider us to be invaders.”

Climate stress

Rising temperatures and scarcer, more unpredictable rainfall are acknowledged factors in inflaming ancestral tensions in the Lake Chad area.

In a 2019 report, the Europe-based think tank Adelphi warned of “a feedback loop” — a vicious circle, in non-technical speech — between climate change and conflict dynamics.

Climate stress increases pressure on communities, which undermines their ability to cope.

This in turn makes those communities more vulnerable to climate impacts and heightens competition for resources.

Armel Sambo, a professor of history at the University of Maroua, said “When the economic situation deteriorates, people fall back on their ethnicity, religion and identity issues,” inflaming the risk of violence.

“Historically, the Mousgoums are the natives and the Arabs are nomadic herders, regarded as people who come along and occupy the land as intruders.”

Lake Chad is an expanse of shallow water and swamps that at one time was the size of Lake Erie, extending its shores to four countries — Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

But it has lost more than 90 percent of its surface area in six decades, reduced from 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 square miles) in 1963 to less than 1,500 square kilometres today.

Increased irrigation and human demand for freshwater, along with less rainfall, have driven the shinkage.

The lake basin and its countless islets have also become the main haven for jihadist fighters from Nigeria’s Boko Haram and its dissident branch, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), but the Kousseri area has thus far been spared from their attacks.

Solutions

At a village near Kousseri, Mahamat Djidda Mahamat, a 20-year-old resident, said the situation had calmed down after last year’s clashes.

“I don’t know if it’s over. I lost my father, my house, loved ones… I just want to live in peace,” he said, adding that he avoided the Arabs.

“People are going home. We have secured the area,” said Bakari Midjiyawa, the governor of the Far North region.

But, said Sambo, what was needed was a long-term system of water allocation and mediation so that disputes between herders and fishermen did not turn bloody.

“Efforts are being made but are not enough,” he said.

“Seasonal livestock trails should be marked out, water points should be created for each community and there should be monitoring to ensure proper application of these measures,” he said.

“The government must become more involved, ensure the safety of movements of people in this region and promote mediation by traditional chiefs.”

More widely, the disappearance of Lake Chad — a hypothesis deemed credible by experts — would deprive millions of water needed to survive through fishing, agriculture, livestock and trade.

“The effects of global warming and the problems of access to water have catalysed tensions,” said Xavier Bourgois, spokesperson for UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency.

“Now we must bring all the players around the table to find the roots of the problem and put in place solutions for adapting.”

Source: AFP