Two criminals posing as members of the Ambazonia Restoration Force were killed today at Ndu by Cameroon government soldiers deployed to the area.

The Francophone civil administrator in Ndu was quoted as saying that the “Amba Terrorist came to kidnap workers of the Ndu Tea Plantation but were neutralized by Cameroon government forces.”

Cameroon Concord News sources in Ndu revealed that the two gunmen were local criminals who had been terrorizing the area and had nothing to do with Southern Cameroons Self Defense Groups.

The two armed robbers reportedly disguised as Amba fighters and fired bullets at different locations in the tea plantation, many of them randomly. They were killed in a confrontation with BIR.

A close aide to Vice President Dabney Yerima of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government contacted by Camcordnews said today that the Ambazonia Interim Government believes there may be more Atanga Nji Boys abandoned by the Minister of Territorial Administration within Ndu who are now committing crimes.

Dr Patrick Ayuk said that the Southern Cameroons Interim Government was “on the verge” of restructuring the county-by-county self defense protocols to be able to fish out the Atanga Nji Boys.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

Ambazonia Restoration Forces providing security in Bui Division have destroyed several Cameroon government military trucks transporting security forces as well as some armored vehicles and artillery systems.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered from administrative sources in Bamenda that the armored vehicles were part of a huge volume of military equipment donated or sold to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime by the French to help it crush the British Southern Cameroons resistance.

A video released by the Bui Warriors also claimed that they had seized and destroyed several trucks from Cameroon government forces.

Cameroon government soldiers deployed to the rural areas in Southern Cameroons are evaporating in the face of Ambazonia pressure—sometimes without a fight, due in part to the perception that the government is reportedly crumbling as the 88-year-old President Paul Biya smells his last days on earth.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is withdrawing from Southern Cameroons after failing to reach an agreement with the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime following eight months of suspension despite extensive negotiations.

The announcement of MSF’s withdrawal was made public Tuesday, August 3, 2021, through a statement by Emmanuel Lampaert coordinator of MSF operations in Central Africa.

“We therefore have no choice but to withdraw our teams. However, we will keep a small liaison office in Bamenda, the regional capital, to continue the dialogue with the authorities,” he said.

It was in December 2020 that the international NGO was suspended from all activities in Southern Cameroons on a lame and ridiculous reason that its physicians were helping Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

Hardliners in the regime including Defense Minister Beti Assomo and Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji accused the NGO of collaborating with the Southern Cameroons Interim Government and Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces and also of treating wounded Ambazonians in the name of international humanitarian law.

The Biya French Cameroun conman Paul Atanga Nji wanted by the Special Criminal Court in Yaoundé even said in a press conference in Yaoundé that weapons and ammunition were found in MSF ambulances.

Last May, MSF’s CEO visited Yaoundé and was received by the Minister of External Relations, the Minister of Defense and Paul Atanga Nji of Territorial administration.

After discussions with LeJeune Mbella Mbella (Minrex) Joseph Beti Assomo (Mindef) and Paul Atanga Nji (Minat), no compromise was reached.

According to Doctors Without Borders, the Biya regime officials want the NGO to act as an “intelligence agency and to report to Yaoundé every location where injured Ambazonia fighters are being treated.”

The Beti Ewondo gang opposed the requirements of international humanitarian law, specifically the Vienna Convention, which sets out the principles of neutrality and independence of NGOs.

MSF has been providing emergency medical care and free ambulance service in Southern Cameroons since 2018.The NGO says that since its suspension, several children have died for lack of medicine, due to the lack of means to get to hospitals.

By Fon Lawrence

Popular French Cameroun political analyst was recently kicked off his prime time slot for pro Southern Cameroons comment.

Dieudonné Essomba has participated in the ”Club d’Elites”, broadcast every Sunday on the private television channel, Vision 4 show since its inception but was ousted over his pro Southern Cameroons statements.

Vision 4 bosses contacted by our Yaoundé city reporter insist it is due to heightened sensitivities and to avoid accusations of a conflict of interest.

His last appearance on the popular program was on July 18, 2021 in which the economist analyzed the anti-Biya demonstration organized on July 17 by Cameroonian activists, united under the banner of the Anti-Sardinard Brigade (BAS).

The French Cameroun political commentator indexed the Biya regime and accused it of being at the origin of all the ongoing crises in Cameroon particularly the war in Southern Cameroons.

Speaking to reporters in Yaoundé recently, Dieudonné Essomba said “I signed a contract with Vision 4. For now, it has not been terminated. But they have asked me not to come anymore”.

By Rita Akana

The war in Southern Cameroons is not generating a drumbeat of daily headlines in French speaking Cameroon, even though the conflict has claimed thousands of Anglophone and Francophone lives and seen tens of thousands of Southern Cameroonians as refugees in neighbouring Nigeria. It is indeed a conflict that will go on for a long time and will eventually see children of veteran soldiers deployed in the same war.

The Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime has no pity for English speaking Cameroonians. Correspondingly, the death of children and pregnant women during this fighting does not arouse any pity in Yaoundé. The Biya criminal gang has one objective – proving that it can win a war – and the generals leading the troops clearly hold that the insurgency is an opportunity for them to enrich themselves.

But for over four years now, the initial purpose of the Francophone dominated military mission – to go after Ambazonia Restoration Forces and destroyed English speaking Cameroon– has not been met and the mission has now devolved into French Cameroun’s “forever war”.

As Biya and his Beti Ewondo military leaders continue to unleash its army soldiers on the Southern Cameroons population just to demonstrate its strength, Ambazonia Restoration Forces are fighting back and killing the Francophone soldiers in their numbers.

A total of 2067 Cameroon government soldiers have died and 9000 have been wounded since the war started four years ago. The number of Southern Cameroons civilian deaths range from 25,000 to 35,000, while the cost of military operations continues to rise.

More than 2,000 Francophone army soldiers have escaped to the Ivory Coast via Nigeria and many are defecting to seek safety in other French speaking African countries, according to Cameroon Ministry of Defense. Instead of seeking ways of ending the violence and engineering peace in the two English-speaking regions of the country, the Yaounde government is doing its best to prove a point that has no raison d’etre. 

This is a war that could have been clearly avoided if the government had used known instruments of conflict management and resolution. Genuine dialogue, a key thrust of conflict resolution, was clearly ignored and to deceive the people of Southern Cameroons and the international community, the despicable Yaoundé government organized a semblance of dialogue wherein it chose who had to participate in it, which issues had to be discussed and what resolutions and conclusions had to be reached by the participants; an idea which only caused the conflict to escalate by multiple notches.

The recent killing of two Southern Cameroons civilians and raping of a 53-year-old woman is no accident and let nobody be deceived by whatever the government would say.

The Yaounde government is in the business of winning an argument and it will stop at nothing to prove its point. As usual, it will order an investigation, the findings of which will remain a dead letter like most of the other investigations conducted over the last 39 years by a government that has been conducting itself like a crime syndicate made in the same mould as the Sicilian Mafia.

By Isong Asu in London

Police have arrested a male Cameroonian national who is suspected in the death of a missing woman whose corpse was found in Nara Prefecture earlier this month, reports Mainichi Broadcasting System (July 29).

On the night of July 27, police apprehended the unnamed suspect as he tried to board a flight at Haneda Airport in Tokyo.

Thus far, police have accused the suspect of forging documents at his place of employment. However, police are building a case against him in the death of Junko Sasaoka, a 56-year-old nurse.

On July 23, police found the body of Sasaoka lying face-up in a grove of trees in the Nakamachi area of Nara City, Nara Prefecture.

Bloodstains and hair

Police said last week that her vehicle was found in a supermarket parking lot about 1.2 kilometers away from her home in Yamatokoriyama City, Nara three days before.

Bloodstains matching Sasaoka and strands of her hair attached to tape were found inside the vehicle, police said.

Police also said that security camera footage showed a man, believed to be a foreigner, leaving the vehicle in the parking lot. The same footage shows him then boarding another car driven by a second man, also believed to be a foreigner.

Police have also revealed about 30 million yen in cash disappeared from a bank account connected to Sasaoka before the incident.

Reported missing

Sasaoka was last seen when she commuted to a special home for the elderly in Osaka Prefecture on July 9.

Her sister reported her missing with the Koriyama Police Station on July 15. Police began searching for her the following day.

Police have not divulged how the Cameroonian is connected to the death of Sasaoka.

Source: Tokyo Reporter

The independent international organisation Human Rights Watch has urged authorities in Cameroon to protect civilians caught up in a conflict pitting the central African country’s army against separatists in the west, denouncing atrocities committed by both sides.

More than 3,500 people have been killed and over 700,000 have fled their homes to escape the conflict that erupted in 2017 in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.

“Cameroonian security forces killed two civilians, raped a 53-year-old woman, destroyed and looted at least 33 homes, shops, as well as a traditional leader’s palace in the Northwest region on June 8 and 9,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

The organisation said it had interviewed several victims, their relatives and witnesses, as well as local journalists and civil society activists.

The alleged rape victim said her ordeal began when soldiers asked her and her husband where the separatist fighters were.

“We said we didn’t know,” she said, according to HRW. “They said my husband had a gun. We said we had no gun. They said they would kill us, and then one of them raped me.”

Her husband’s body was found three days later, shot in the mouth, HRW said.

Urgent need to protect civilian communities

“Cameroon’s security forces have an obligation to lawfully counter attacks by armed separatist groups, and protect people’s rights during periods of violence,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior researcher at HRW.

“But yet again, we learn that they have responded to the threat from separatist groups with attacks on civilians and serious human rights violations of their own.”

The defence ministry declined to comment on the report.

The statement also detailed killings — including of a 12-year-old boy — and kidnappings carried out by separatist fighters.

The abuses by both sides in the conflict “highlight the urgent need to protect communities at risk and to hold those responsible for abuses to account,” the statement said.

Other humanitarian groups including Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have also raised the alarm recently about the risks faced by civilians.

Members of the English-speaking minority in the western provinces of Cameroon have long complained of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority and 88-year-old President Paul Biya, in power for 38 years.

Their demonstrations escalated into conflict in 2017.

Source: RFI