Gunmen killed at least eight Cameroonian security members after they ambushed a convoy in Cameroon’s English-speaking region of Northwest on Saturday, according to security and local sources.

A senior police officer told Xinhua that the gunmen ambushed and attacked the convoy that was transporting security forces to their duty posts around 7:30 a.m. local time on Saturday in Santa, a locality in the region.

“Five police officers, three gendarmes and a civilian were killed in the attack making it nine people killed. Another police officer was seriously injured, and he is receiving treatment in a hospital,” the officer who asked not to be named told Xinhua by phone, adding that attackers used a rocket launcher.

Security forces have blocked the highway leading to the locality and are in pursuit of the gunmen, whom the army suspect are separatist fighters who are known to be operating in the area.

It is one of the bloodiest attacks in the troubled region this year, officials said.

Separatists have been clashing with government forces in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest in a bid to create an independent nation they called “Ambazonia.”

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Gunmen abducted at least 14 road construction workers in Cameroon’s war-torn Anglophone region of Northwest on Friday, according to a local official.

Abdou Borno Kamfon, mayor of Ndu Council of the region said the workers were rehabilitating a bad stretch of road in Mbusoh locality when armed men came and seized them.

“They were sent there by the Ndu Council to repair the road. We do not know their whereabouts yet. We are still trying to secure their release,” Kamfon told Xinhua by phone.

The road is a deviation regularly used by passengers who are escaping from armed separatists who had blocked the main road for over four years now, according to locals.

The Cameroon army is conducting a rescue mission to secure the safe release of the hostages, local authorities said.

Abductions are common in the region where the army and armed separatists have been clashing since 2017.

The separatists want to create an independent nation they called “Ambazonia” in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.

Source: Xinhuanet

There was fear and apprehension at New Road Mile 2 Nkwen in Bamenda today Friday, when a Francophone policeman shot dead a 7 year-old girl Tataw Brandy who was heading home from school. The killing of the girl sparked off heavy protest as youths in the area gave the patrol team a hot chase, forcing the police to abandon their vehicle and flee the scene.

A witness said the police officers were stopping drivers of vehicles and demanding CFA 500 at a checkpoint in the Dreamlike Bar area and one of the officers reportedly opened fire and a stray bullet hit the young girl.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that the killing of the girl sparked off serious protest by an angry mob that chased after the policemen who fired randomly to scare people away, and they escaped but abandoned their patrol vehicle.

Today’s incident brings some sad memories of the killing of a five-year-old girl by another Francophone gendarmerie officer in Buea last month.

By Fon Lawrence

As the Yaounde government demonstrates that it is incapable of providing security and justice to all Cameroonians, communities and vigilante groups are now taking matters into their hands and the outcomes are not heart-warming.

Over the last four years, cases of jungle justice in the two English-speaking regions of the country have been on the rise as rogue elements seek to make hay while the sun shines as the fighting in the country’s two English-speaking regions continues to escalate.

The country’s security forces are also to blame for some of the violence playing out in the regions and their crimes against the frustrated fatigued civilians makes it hard for the population to report any incidents, especially when the uniformed forces are known to outsource their guns and uniforms for commissions.

As the security  situation in the two English-speaking regions remains fussy, civilians have opted to take matters into their hands to deal with many young men who have become a menace to their own communities because of the Southern Cameroons crisis.

This was what happened to a young man in Bambui in the Northwest region of Cameroon. The population was sick and tired of his threats and had to take the law into its hands.

It beat and burned the young man  alive as a sign of frustration and a message to would-be criminals who would want to use the crisis to exploit the suffering masses.

The suspect, who had been tried and sentenced by the “court of jungle justice” was accused of robbing many residents of his neighborhood, especially students.

He joined his ancestors after a crowd mobilised and caught up with him near the National Polytechnic in Bambui.

The young man was operating on a slippery terrain and he forgot that in Southern Cameroons, justice delayed is justice denied and that was how he was summarily killed through mob justice.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

After the Toronto retreat, which received the approval of millions of Cameroonians, especially Southern Cameroonians in their majority, there are already discussions on the next retreat which will hold in Dublin, Ireland.

According to a source close to the organizers, Dublin has been chosen to be the next venue of the next retreat because of its location and  membership of the European Union and the seat of Greenclee which brokered the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland which ended the IRA military action in the country.

Currently, negotiations are underway to ensure that all factions get represented at the retreat which will help the different factions to further narrow their differences so as to deal with the Yaounde government which organizers sayp must demonstrate good faith and must immediately engage in confidence-building endeavors.

Among the endeavors organizers say will reduce mistrust and set the country to the path to recovery are:

– the release of all those arrested within the framework of all those arrested and are being held in jails across the country;

– the engagement of talks with the leaders of the revolution who are currently in jail in Yaounde;

-the gradual withdrawal of soldiers from areas considered to be safe;

-the approval of dual nationality; and

-the granting of a general amnesty to all those who have been directly or indirectly involved in the struggle.

It is believed that these confidence-building measures could defuse tensions and improve the atmosphere which will make it possible for even extremist groups to participate in future talks whose agenda should include secession.

However, opponents of secession hold that no country will willingly let any group or groups  to walk away from the country as such a move could trigger a movement that might cause the country to implode.

But proponents of federalism hold that the onus is on the government to demonstrate good faith and convince separatists that the country could still be federally united through significant reforms that may lay the hyper-centralized system to rest.

The organizers of the retreat are open to all ideas and they hold that only talks and negotiations can help the country to find a sustainable solution that will bring peace to the entire sub-region.

A source close to the Presidency has told the Cameroon Concord News Group that there is a huge appetite for peace within government circles, as the country’s leaders are scared that the prolonged fighting might  disintegrate a union which initially seemed to have been made in Heaven.

The use of both English and French in Cameroon has given the country a unique position on the African continent, but bad faith and greed have made this rich cultural asset to look more like an apple of discord whereas, originally, it was designed to make the country the apple of all eyes.

As the conflict prolongs, the number of casualties has continued to rise steadily. Many explosions have been going off in many parts of Southern Cameroons and this is spreading dead and destruction across the two English-speaking regions of the country.

Yesterday in Buea, two explosions went off, with one going off in the University of Buea, resulting in eleven students being injured. Those injured are currently in hospitals in Buea and are reported to be in stable condition.

Speaking to journalists in Buea on Wednesday after the explosion went off, the university’s vice chancellor, Prof. Horace Ngomo Manga, expressed his disappointment with the situation, underscoring that it was unfortunate that some terrorists could bring their terror to a university campus where young students only want to acquire knowledge to serve the country in the future.

He pointed out that university authorities were not in the know of those who had committed such a heinous act, stressing that there would be investigations to determine those responsible for the crime.

He added that security within the university would be beefed up, stressing that school resumption and other activities would continue regardless of attempts by terrorists to strike fear in the minds of staff and students.

It should be recalled that over the last three months, many soldiers and a few civilians have been killed through the use improvised explosive devices (IEDs); a situation which has caused the government to rethink its military strategy.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in the UK and Joachim Arrey in Canada

An improvised explosive device went off Monday in Cameroon’s war-torn English-speaking region of Southwest, killing one person, according to the police.

Buea Ghost fighters, an armed separatist group, claimed responsibility for the blast which happened in the town of Buea.

A separatist fighter disguised as a passenger stopped a taxi and then dropped the explosive device in the vehicle which exploded and killed the taxi driver identified as Feugang Baude-Laire.

A senior policeman at the scene said the explosion, which sent passersby running, was unusual in the relatively peaceful town.

“This sort of attack is very rare in Buea,” he said.

Separatist fighters said that they were targeting taxi drivers who disobey the order to stay home Mondays.

Every Monday, residents in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest stay home following “ghost town” or sit-at-home order, a form of civil disobedience which separatist leaders instituted since 2017.

Separatist insurgents are seeking to form a breakaway state called “Ambazonia” in the two English-speaking regions. They have been clashing with government forces since 2017.

Source: Xinhuanet

Palpable fear has reportedly gripped residents of Buea, the chief city in the South West region as a taxi driver was  killed by the first blast, with some 200 hundred Buea University students left injured by the second explosion.

According to Cameroon Concord News sources,the explosions rocked Buea today, with the attacks occurring in the Molyko neighborhoods predominantly inhabited by students.

Footage circulating online shows one of the injured students completely engulfed in blood, surrounded by debris. It was not immediately clear whether the Amphi 600 was hit by a bomb or if the explosive device was inside the building.

The gruesome attack has not been claimed by any Ambazonia Restoration group, with the main adversary of the Cameroon government, the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, strongly denying involvement and condemning the attack on university students.

Fingers are all pointing to the Southern Cameroons minority group in Maryland in the USA known for its hardline views and particular hatred displayed towards children going back to school.

This item is still developing

By Fon Lawrence in Buea

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima has called on the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations to recognize an independent Southern Cameroons state with Buea as its capital, urging the Commonwealth to enact laws and regulations that target the French Cameroun regime under President Paul Biya as well as senior military officials of the Yaoundé government.

During a zoom meeting with members of the Ambazonia Interim Government war cabinet on Monday, Dabney Yerima discussed the recent Toronto Southern Cameroons Retreat and the position of the Interim Government with La Republique du Cameroun and the exiled Southern Cameroons leader sounded a note of caution to Southern Cameroonians that the French Cameroun regime is involved in several diabolic harsh ploy to wreck prospects for the two-Cameroons solution through the atrocities of its occupational army and violation of Southern Cameroons rights.

Yerima also appealed to the Department of Foreign Affairs to concentrate on the onerous task ahead and not be distracted by detractors of the Toronto meeting.

Vice President Dabney Yerima then called upon the Commonwealth and other Western countries to stop La Republique du Cameroun from jeopardizing Southern Cameroon’s future by insisting on its French colonial policies and violations of human rights.

Since the Southern Cameroons crisis hit the global stage some five years ago, some 10,000 Cameroonians have been killed, with army soldiers accounting for close to 35% of the deaths.

Thousands of civilians and soldiers have been maimed and scarred for life in a conflict that could have been addressed through negotiations and genuine dialogue.

By Chi Prudence Asong and Isong Asu