Three soldiers serving with the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) and two deputy mayors including three councilors have been killed in an ambush by Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Oku in Bui County in Southern Cameroons.

The Eagle New Africa reported that Taal Timothy Babey and Babey Julius Ghoyume of Elak Council and three councilors from Oku were inside an armored vehicle returning to Kumbo after a political campaign when they came under an attack on the 28^th of March that emphasises the growing insecurity in the entire Southern Cameroons territory.

Cameroon Concord News is yet to verify the correctness of the Eagle New Africa report but if the death toll is confirmed, is the deadliest on Cameroon army soldiers ever since the regime in Yaoundé succeeded in getting two corrupt Ambazonian front lines leaders; Dr Ikome Sako and Ebenezer Akwanga to commit to a coronavirus cease fire.

We gathered that a PhD student from the University of Dschang identified as Kedia Kenneth Buji and eight other members of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate were killed in the attack.

The Cameroonian military has not released casualty figures, but a senior official who spoke on condition of anonymity stated that the army was tired and fed up with the war in Southern Cameroons. He added that the Ambazonian fighters first targeted the driver of the armored vehicle before over-running its occupants.

Since 2016, Southern Cameroons Self-Defense Forces have carried out attacks against Cameroon government military installations and security posts in Southern Cameroons. The Francophone dominated military have failed to stem the violence. This year has also seen Ambazonia groups increase their presence in border areas in Manyu and Bui County.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

U.S. Embassy Yaounde has arranged a special charter flight for U.S. citizens departing Yaounde NSI Airport on Tuesday, March 31 at 4 p.m.  This flight will be direct to Washington, D.C. (Dulles International Airport), at an estimated cost of $2065 per passenger regardless of passenger age or seat location (the final cost will be announced as soon as it is confirmed).  Passengers will not be paying beforehand, but rather borrowing the cost of the flight from the U.S. Government.

All passengers must agree to reimburse the U.S. Government by signing a promissory note (loan agreement) for approximately $2065.  Only passengers who complete and sign the form will be allowed to board the plane.  No cash or credit card payments will be accepted at the U.S. Embassy or the airport.  Please fill out the attached form (DS-5528) and email the completed version to YaoundeACS@state.gov to register for the flight on a first-come, first-served basis.

You will be responsible for any arrangements and costs (lodging, connecting flights, or local transportation, etc.) beyond Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C.

No pets will be allowed on the flight and each passenger will only be allowed one carry-on bag and two checked bags with a maximum of 46kg.  There will be no option to pay for extra services or excess baggage on the day of the flight.

The airline reserves the right to refuse boarding for any passenger.  Passengers who are displaying COVID-19 symptoms or who have recently traveled to a high-risk country may be refused boarding.

If you want to depart on this flight, please email YaoundeACS@state.gov  with full names (First, Middle, Last) as they appear in the U.S. passport, date of birth, and U.S. passport number for each traveler and the completed DS-5528 promissory note.  You are required to do this even if you have previously sent us this information.  The flights will be filled in the order that the emails are received.  Please do not call the Embassy to confirm receipt of your email; we will contact you if you are confirmed for a seat on one of these flights.

After the flight is full, subsequent requests will be placed on a standby list.  Legal Permanent Residents are also eligible to be placed on the standby list but will only be accommodated after all U.S. citizens have had an opportunity to take a seat.

Be assured that Embassy Yaounde will continue to make every effort to assist U.S. citizens who are not able to travel on this flight, but still wish to return home.  However, encourage those interested to take advantage of this opportunity quickly.

Source: US Embassy Yaounde

Authorities in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, have arrested prostitutes who have been visiting coronavirus isolation centres in some hotels and offering their services.

The prostitutes, who earn at least $30 a night, have been approaching travellers from Europe despite the risk of contracting the disease and spreading it.

Mr Jean Claude Tsila, the capital’s administrative officer, reported the arrests to state broadcaster Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) on Friday.

Mr Tsila did not give the number of those arrested but reliable sources close to his office said they were at least 50.

“We were reliably informed that some persons confined to some hotels in Yaounde due to the coronavirus pandemic were receiving prostitutes inside their rooms,” the administrative officer said.

Source: Daily Nation

Cameroon reported on Sunday 14 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 113, Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie tweeted on Sunday morning.

“The majority of positive cases are people from countries at risk who hide in families”, he added.

On Friday, Manaouda tweeted that an “active and early case finding by generalized testing” has become part of Cameroon’s new response strategy to COVID-19. The country had 92 cases on Friday.

To ensure a generalized testing, Cameroon government invites people who entered the country since March 10 to contact the health authorities so as to be tested for novel coronavirus. A door-to-door search campaign will also be organized from April 2 to 7 in Douala, the country’s most populous city.

Source: Xinhuanet

While the attention of the authorities and the international community has shifted to the Anglophone Cameroon, attacks perpretrated by Boko Haram have resumed in the far north of the country.

As dawn broke, Akhada set to work.

Huddled on a small chair, he has been sorting the millet grains from the sack placed near him for two weeks. One by one, he eliminates those that are burnt. This is all he has been able to save from his last harvest since a fire ravaged his house on 13 February.

On that day, members of the Boko Haram jihadist group burst into his village of Kilda, a town not far from Koza in the far north region. Houses, crops, and livestock were consumed by the fury of the flames.

Villagers were murdered.

“They killed my cousin right in front of me,” he said. He was only passing through the village to visit the family. With his two wives and two children, Akhada took refuge in Ldamtsai, on the outskirts of Mokolo, the capital of Mayo-Tsanaga department. They occupy a 9 m2 room.

Resurgence of violence

In recent months, hundreds of families living in villages near the border with Nigeria have been forced to flee their homes due to renewed violence from Boko Haram. Hidoua, Gochi, Mandaka, Tourou, Kolofata… The list of localities attacked since December 2019 continues to grow. On almost every occasion, arson, looting, kidnapping, and assassinations have been reported.Daily newsletter: join our 100 000 subscribers!Each day, get the essential: 5 things you need to know Sign up Also receive offers from The Africa ReportAlso receive offers from The Africa Report’s partners

On 15 February, Uzal, in Mayo-Moskota, was completely razed to the ground. “Boko Haram arrived that day at around 10 p.m. They stayed for four hours. They burned everything in their path, and when the defence forces arrived, there was nothing left to save,” said a relative of the region’s governor. According to an official report, three people died in the attack.

Every day there are new arrivals in the Mokolo IDP, but many prefer to settle temporarily in the mountains surrounding the town. “Some just want us to store their food in our attics to protect it from the weather and then leave. In the camps, life is even harder,” said Marguerite, the owner of the premises occupied by Akhada and her family.

It’s been a long time since the fight against Boko Haram became a national issue and was the subject of special attention from the international community.

The Far North is far from the decision-making centre

Since the end of 2016, the focus has been instead on the English-speaking crisis.

In the streets of Maroua, the capital of the Far North, life has resumed. Memories of curfews and tank patrols are told in the bars of the Domayo district, where beer and local music are consumed with abandon.

Remote areas

It often appears that the media is less inclined to carry news from this “front” and rather concentrate on the violence that plunges the northwest and southwest regions into mourning week after week.

The stakes, of course, are not the same. There is nothing in common between Boko Haram, which carries out regular but contained attacks in some remote areas, and the separatist demands of the “Ambazonians”.

Journalist Saliou Aminou explained that the remoteness of the north does not help.

“The Far North is far from the decision-making centre,” he said. “And its elites do not always carry the voice of the people as far as Yaoundé.’

“It’s clear that it’s no longer the great effervescence, as it was between 2013 and 2015,” confirmed Yannick Assongmo of the daily Le Jour.

At the time, not a day went by without a daily newspaper headline about the attacks by Boko Haram. But since then, the news has become more diverse. There has been the conflict in the English-speaking area, but also the post-electoral crisis which has focused attention.

Legislatve and municipal elections

“In fact, the question of the fight against Boko Haram was completely avoided during the debates organised in the run-up to the legislative and municipal elections last February,” said Assongmo.

No political party in the running has put it on its agenda or made any proposal to end the crisis. Opposition leader Maurice Kamto, one of the few to have publicly mentioned the resurgence of attacks, has denounced the silence surrounding him, choosing not to take part in the elections.

To justify his boycott, he said he regretted that President Paul Biya “did not consider that the resolution of the humanitarian tragedy caused by the war against Boko Haram was as important as the holding of the elections”.

On the side of the victims, the “passivity of the defence forces” is stressed — this is believed to be one of the reasons for Boko Haram’s return in force. Nico Seni, one of the survivors of the attack on Kolofata, claimed to have called in vain for help during the attack.

“The military told us that they had not received authorization to intervene!” he claimed.

“Last year, when Kilda was attacked, the army stayed with us,” said Akhada. “Boko Haram were afraid and didn’t come back. But this time the military didn’t come [to the village]. The attackers could come back at any moment, that’s why we left.”

Demobilization of soldiers

“When outlaws enter a locality, if the police don’t respond immediately, people will tend to leave the area,” admitted Roger Saffo, the secretary general of the governor’s office.

However, the intensity of the response deployed at the height of the crisis by the Cameroonian defence forces and their allies in the sub-region has substantially decreased.

Security specialist Édouard Épiphane Yogo speaks of the elimination of “certain military posts” in the villages and the “demobilization” of soldiers on the ground.

The Far North is also feeling the effects of the withdrawal of the Chadian military forces that were deployed in neighbouring Nigeria, some 1,200 soldiers, who finally returned home in early January.

Jihadists now have greater freedom to operate on both sides of the border.

Left to fend for themselves

In the absence of any real support from the authorities, the number of vigilance committees, which served as a bulwark against Boko Haram, has also decreased, and those that are still operational have become less effective. For example, in Mogode commune, the local self-defence group now has only about ten members, compared to more than 250 at the peak of the conflict.

To make matters worse, lack of maintenance, rains and mud have filled entire portions of the large trench built in 2017 by the army to block the advance of the jihadists. From now on, the inhabitants of the surrounding villages tell us, it is mainly used as a passageway by the attackers.

However, the Cameroonian authorities refuse to be alarmed.

“Our defence forces are doing a titanic job, and the task is not easy,” insisted Roger Saffo. “The proof: we have been engaged in this fight since 2014 and we haven’t lost one square centimetre of our territory.”

Bottom line: Like many displaced people, Akhada, for his part, hopes for a national surge and large-scale mobilization, as was the case in 2014.

“We don’t have the means to defend ourselves,” he said. “If nothing is done, they will massacre us all!”

Culled from The Africa Report

This week Cameroon recorded its first death from COVID-19. 88 cases have now been confirmed across the country, although limited testing means the real number is likely higher.

The government recently took measures to curb the spread of the virus, including shutting schools, closing borders, banning mass gatherings, and encouraging people to follow hygiene rules.

But in Cameroon’s prisons, which are notably overcrowded, keeping social distance, practicing self-isolation, and taking basic measures such as hand washing are just not possible.

The central prison in the capital Yaoundé currently holds about 5,000 people – 5 times its capacity – the majority of whom are in pretrial detention. The last time I visited the prison was in 2016, and I was shocked by the dreadful conditions, including filthy latrines and hundreds of detainees crammed in the same small cell. The prison had one health center with only one doctor.

My contacts in Cameroon say nothing has changed. A Cameroonian lawyer who regularly visits it told Human Rights Watch this week: “In the event of the virus spreading inside the prison, no medical care will be possible. The prisoners are piled on top of each other; it’s impossible to keep any safe distance. This prison is a volcano ready to explode.”

Other prisons are no better. The prison in Maroua, in the Far North region, was built for 350 people but currently holds over 1,470, of whom some 70 percent are awaiting trial. The central prison in Buea, in the troubled South-West region, was built for 700 people, but currently holds over 2,000 – again with the majority in pretrial detention.

Cameroonian authorities are limiting prison visits and asking visitors to wash their hands. But lawyers and family members of detainees say it’s not enough.

Under international law, Cameroon has an obligation to ensure the health care of people in prison, and it cannot do that in this pandemic with such overcrowding. Authorities should release individuals whose pretrial detention is not absolutely justified on public safety grounds and put in place a system for considering early or supervised release for those most at risk, including older people and people with health conditions that makes the virus more dangerous for them, as well as those in custody for minor offenses. Anything less will risk the health – and the lives – of thousands of people.

Culled from Human Rights Watch