News

10, June 2019

Menchum County Attack: Governor Lele Lafrique says investigations are ongoing ⁰

At least three civilians were killed and several others injured in violent clashes opposing the native Aghem population and the muslim community in Wum, Menchum County, the region’s Francophone governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique revealed.

Following “an attack staged by secessionist activists” in Thursday that led to the killing of a local Hausa community leader, “a group of Hausa and Aku youths” carried out Monday “targeted acts of vandalism,” killing two and injuring five, Lafrique said in a statement Tuesday.

The violence also caused “destruction of houses and property” of the both sides, he said, adding that prompt intervention of government forces on ground significantly contributed to check the situation from degenerating.

“Investigations are ongoing to identify and punish all those responsible for such unfortunate initiatives that undermine national unity, national cohesion and our territory integrity,” Lafrique said.

The attack, pitting a civil community against armed separatists, was the first of its kind since November 2017 when separatists began clashing with government forces to demand the independence of the minority two Cameroon’s Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.

The Ambazonia Interim Government condemned “inter-tribal conflict” blaming the government for fueling the dispute in order to “weaken” support for the armed separatists from the locals.

At least 430,000 people have been displaced internally by the conflict, according to the United Nations.

10, June 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 8 killed, dozens injured in Ekona ⁰

Eight people were killed and several others injured on Saturday in Ekona, a locality in Southwest, one of the two troubled English-speaking regions of Cameroon, according to local sources.

“I personally saw over eight corpses, mostly men and a woman. They were lying in the bush. All of them were shot at close range,” a local resident who asked not to be named revealed on Saturday.

There were conflicting reports of the identity of the killed. Armed separatists claimed that all those were civilians shot by government forces, but the army said they were separatists killed in a counter-attack.

“The army received intel (intelligence) of the presence of several terrorists (separatists) in the locality and ambushed them on their way to attack a village. They opened fire the moment they discovered our position and we retaliated. About 10 of them were neutralized and others escaped with serious injuries,” an army officer who preferred not to be named said.

Since November 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from the largely French-speaking nation and form a new country called “Ambazonia”.

Reported by Xinhuanet

7, June 2019

UN concerned over refugees’ ‘ghastly’ conditions in Libya ⁰

The United Nations (UN) has criticized the “ghastly” conditions in migrant detention centers in Libya, where some refugees have died of tuberculosis and many others have simply disappeared.

“We are deeply concerned about the ghastly conditions in which migrants and refugees are being held in detention in Libya,” the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR), Rupert Colville, told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

According to UN figures, some 3,400 migrants and refugees remain jailed in the capital, Tripoli, which has seen a surge in fighting since a mix of militia outfits — which have come together as the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) — launched a major military offensive against the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli in early April.

Amid the rampant violence and insecurity, the Libyan Coast Guard has detained thousands of people off Libya’s coasts and handed them over to the country’s detention facilities.

Referring to the conditions in one detention center, in Zintan, which was recently visited by UN officials, Colville said that the refugees and migrants there were “severely malnourished, lacking water, locked in overcrowded warehouses reeking with the smell of rubbish and waste from overflowing latrines.”

He warned that the conditions in the prison, which houses 654 refugees and migrants, “amount to inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, and may also amount to torture.”

‘This really is a crisis’

The UN human rights spokesman also said that 22 people had already died of tuberculosis in the Zintan detention center since last September.

Sub-Saharan Christian migrants attend a mass at the St. Francis Cathedral in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on May 3, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Colville added that 90 other inmates had contracted the disease. Sixty of those, he said, had been locked in a separate isolation hangar, which he described as a “hell hole,” while the other 30 had been transferred to the Gharyan Detention Center, south of the capital.

“They have reportedly been sent there to die because there are no burial facilities for Christians in Zintan,” he said.

“Tuberculosis need not be a killer disease, but in these circumstances, clearly it is killing people and there is a risk that others will die,” Colville said. “This is really a crisis.”

He also expressed concern about the disappearance of hundreds of migrants from a facility in al-Khoms City, which is under the oversight of the Department for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM).

“This is particularly worrying given reports that migrants are being sold for forced labor or to smugglers promising transit to Europe,” Colville said, also expressing concern about “reports that some women have been sold for sexual exploitation.”

The UN official urged the Libyan government to launch an immediate investigation “to locate these missing people.”

“The Libyan Coast Guard and the DCIM must ensure that they are accountable for every person in detention, and that their human rights are respected,” Colville said.

Libya has been in effective chaos since 2011, when longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled from power after an uprising and a NATO military intervention.

The migrants fleeing Libya often attempt to reach Europe. Alarmed by increasing numbers of migrants, European countries have over the past years tried to convince Libya to crack down on such migration.

Source: Presstv

6, June 2019

Rights monitors sound alarm over ‘neglected’ Southern Cameroons crisis ⁰

Rights groups have sounded a warning over the escalating crisis in western Cameroon, where separatists and government forces are locked in deadly combat.

“The international community is asleep at the wheel when it comes to the crisis in Cameroon,” the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Jan Egeland, said in a report issued on Tuesday.

“Brutal killings, burned-down villages and massive displacement have been met with deafening silence.”

Two regions in Cameroon are in the grip of an armed campaign by English-speaking militants seeking independence from the francophone-majority country.

On October 1 2017, they declared the creation of the “Republic of Ambazonia,” covering the two English-speaking regions incorporated into post-independence Cameroon in 1961.

The declaration went largely unnoticed outside Cameroon, and “Ambazonia” — named after a bay at the mouth of the Douala River — has been recognised by no-one.

The government responded with a brutal crackdown, and the separatists in turn have mounted a campaign of attacks on state buildings, shooting and kidnappings.

According to the International Crisis Group think tank, 1,850 people have been killed, while more than 530,000 people have been forced from their homes, according to UN figures.

The NRC said the crisis in the Northwest and Southwest Regions topped its annual list of the world’s “most neglected displacement crises”.

There has been no major mediation effort, no large relief programme, minimal media interest and insufficient pressure to stop attacks on civilians, it said.

Second and third on the NRC list were long-running conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

Separately, a report by a Cameroon-based rights group in Africa, the CHRDA, and the Canada-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, accused the armed forces of conducting “a deliberate, violent campaign against civilian populations”.

It acknowledged that local armed groups also bore “much responsibility” for the violence.

“It is sometimes argued that the current crisis is just one more conflict in a series of reciprocal attacks and reprisals between government and secessionist forces,” the report, published on Monday, said.

“However, minimizing the seriousness of the attacks on civilians as part of the ‘normal’ conflict serves to shield serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity and may even enable their continuation.

“Minimizing the conflict also ignores evidence that the violence is spreading, engulfing Francophone regions of the country, becoming a threat to the entire sub-region.”

Around a fifth of Cameroon’s population of 24 million are English-speakers.

Resentment has long festered at perceived discrimination at the hands of the francophone majority in education, law and the economy.

In recent years, growing demands for autonomy or a return to Cameroon’s federal structure were rejected by President Paul Biya, prompting radicals to gain the ascendancy in the anglophone movement.

AFP

6, June 2019

Cameroon tops list of world’s most displacement crises ⁰

The world’s 10 most displacement crises—rendering millions of people homeless– have continued to worsen due either to political neglect, a shortage of funds or lack of media attention, according to a new report released by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland says humanitarian assistance should be given based on needs– and needs alone. However, every day millions of displaced people are neglected because they have been struck by the wrong crisis and the dollars have dried up.

The countries faced with displacement crises last year were largely in Africa, with Cameroon heading the list, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Burundi, Mali, Libya and Ethiopia.

The remaining three, according to the NRC, were Ukraine, Venezuela and Palestine.

“This depressing list must serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Only by drawing attention to these crises, learning about them and placing them high on the international agenda, can we achieve much needed change,” said Egeland, a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Dr Martin Scott, from the University of East Anglia, UK, and lead author of a recent report into The State of Humanitarian Journalism, told IPS although reports like this are an important first step in raising the profile of these crises – but it is not enough to simply lament the lack of coverage.

“What’s needed is a clear-headed assessment of why these displacement crises receive so little coverage. Partly, it’s a reflection of the broken business models of most international journalism – which means news outlets often struggle to provide consistent coverage of real public value,” he argued.

But it is also a reflection of the political priorities of powerful countries – which news outlets often reflect, Dr Scott added.

These reports, he pointed out, also draw attention to what’s not working, in general, within international journalism.

“But there are news outlets which do, regularly, report on crises like these – such as Devex, News Deeply, The New Humanitarian and Inter Press Service (IPS),” he noted.

“It is important to highlight their work – so that audiences know there is coverage of these crises out there,” he declared.

Singling out Cameroon, Egeland said the international community is asleep at the wheel when it comes to the crisis in Cameroon. Brutal killings, burned-down villages and massive displacement have been met with deafening silence.

He said conflict has so far uprooted half a million people in South-West and North-West Cameroon. Hundreds of villages have been set ablaze. Hospitals have been attacked. Health workers fear being abducted or killed.

Over 780,000 children have seen their schools close and thousands of people, currently hiding in the bushes, have received no humanitarian relief. Still there has been no major mediation efforts, no large relief programmes, minimal media interest and too little pressure on parties to stop attacking civilians.

“This culture of paralysis by the international community has to end. Every day the conflict is allowed to continue, bitterness is building and the region edges closer towards full-blown war,” said Egeland, who recently visited the central African country.

The Norwegian Refugee Council is calling for increased attention to the crises on the list to prevent the suffering of millions of vulnerable people.

Asked if the United Nations and the international community were lagging behind in their support, NRC’s Tiril Skarstein told IPS: “We believe that the international community is not doing enough to solve these crises. The lack of political will to find solutions to these crises is often a result of lack of geopolitical interests in the area.”

However, he pointed out, there are also some countries on the list where several world powers have competing interests, leading to a deadlock and a lack of political solutions for people on the ground,–like for example in Palestine and Ukraine.

Asked if the shortfall in funding is due to neglect on the part of Western donors or domestic economic and financial constraints within donor nations, he said humanitarian assistance should be given based on needs alone.

Still, it is easier to attract humanitarian funding to some crises than others. Often, “ we see a close link between the amount of media attention a crisis receives and the amount of humanitarian funding. Some of the crises at the neglected crises list were less than 40 percent funded last year.”

But there is also a general funding shortfall, he conceded.

Last year, only about 60 percent of the total humanitarian appeals by UN and partner organizations were funded.

“This means that we need all donors to increase their humanitarian support so that we can meet the actual humanitarian needs, and we also need new donors, including several emerging economies, to step up.”

Asked why these crises were affecting mostly African nations, compared to Asian and Latin American nations, Skarstein told IPS “unfortunately, the crises on the African continent seldom make media headlines or reach foreign policy agendas before it is too late.”

The lack of funding and political attention has devastating consequences for the civilians who receive neither protection against attacks, nor the necessary relief when they have had to flee their homes in search of safety, he argued.

Most of those who flee head towards neighboring countries or are displaced within their own country. “However, the fact that most of these people do not turn up at our doorsteps here in Europe, for example, does not remove our responsibility to act,” he noted.

According to NRC, the crisis in Cameroon has its root in the country’s troubled colonial history. After World War One, the former German colony was split between a French and British mandate.

The country has now both English and French as official languages, but people in the English-speaking parts have been feeling increasingly marginalized, NRC said.

And in 2016, civilians took to the streets, and a heavy crackdown by security forces led to widespread violence and the formation of armed opposition groups.

Culled from Inter Press Service News

6, June 2019

Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Amabazonia Press Briefing ⁰

Item 1: Atrocities in Wum, Menchum County:
On Monday the 3rd of June 2019, we were stunt by a video on social media. It clearly showed the Cameroon military coordinating and inciting an armed gang of young men in Wum, Menchum County. These armed men purporting to represent the Bororo community, attacked their neighbours, the local Aghem people. They claimed these were revenge for previous attacks on their community in Naikom village by our Restoration Forces.
Eyewitnesses also report of soldiers from the Cameroon military base in Wum providing backup for the revenge attacks.

First of all, I want to extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims of the Naikom village shooting and the Wum attacks. We must state that Cameroon soldiers who were on video fomenting thisattacks, and whom went on videotape the victims of the attack, were hailed by their Governor, Adolphe Lele Lafrique. We strongly condemn his actions!

This is clearly an attempt by the French neocolonial regime in Cameroun to kindle intercommunal violence in our communities. This is an effort to change the narrative of a war of extermination being waged against Ambazonians for matching on the streets with peace plants to demand their fundamental rights.

We saw this kind of escalation of provocation by the French neocolonial regime in Ivory Coast in 2011. In that country, French neocolonial pro-Ouattara forces went out of their way in Duekoue to make parents watch them chop off their children’s heads, in a desperate effort to trigger intercommunal violence. It worked in Ivory Coast but we must make sure it doesn’t work in Ambazonia.

Our mainly Muslim Borroro Brothers and Sisters have lived together in harmony with our predominantly Christian Aghem people for hundreds of years. These communities have intermarried and share several cultural values and practices.

As your Interim Government, we call for maximum restraint and vigilance from all in the affected communities.

We have reached out to Muslim and Christian leaders in Wum. This is their message for all of us especially our fellow compatriots in and around Wum – ‘Ambazonia is a country for all faiths living peacefully one with the other’.
We wish a blessed Eid to all Muslims and pray Allah accepts the Ramadan worship.

Item 2: Updates on SONARA Incident and Health Risk

We wish to express our gratitude to the Ambazonia Comrade in the ranks of the occupation regime who quickly publish on social media the preliminary measures from the smoke coming from the refinery after the fire, saving our people from the hazards of exposure.

We have confirmed the human and environmental risk, and restate the recommendations of the preliminary measures as advised:

• our children in and around Victoria should stop bathing under the rain. • we should stop harvesting and drinking rainwater in the near future. •we should avoid drinking any surface water like wells and streams for now. •those living really close to the refinery should try to use facemask

The crude oil that is burning now is said to contain Hydrogen Sulphide, Benzene, Phenols, Nitrates , Sulphates and Carbonates which burns to oxides (NOx, SOx and COx ). The oxides dissolves in rain to form Nitrous and Notric acid, Sulphurous and Sulphuric acid, and Carbonic acids.

The resulting acid rain as its known, is very caustic and corrosive. It will affect human bodies if bathed with it and can cause permanent lung damage if breath in. The probability of wounds is highly likely. If consumed it will reduce the pH of our body since it is acidic. Please advise and educate your neighbors.

As the situation develops, your Interim Government will do all it can to keep you and your family updated with critical information.

Item 3: Response Regarding UN Security Council Briefing

Much to our consternation, yesterday 4 June, 2019, at the UN Security Council Briefing, the former prime minister of the French neo-colonial regime of Lansana Conté in Guinea and current Special Representative and Head of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) François Fall, continued in his shameful tradition of cover ups and championing of French neo-colonial policies in Central Africa, particularly the Cameroon regime.

An open letter from leading Human Rights Organizations called on “the Security Council to formally add Cameroon to its agenda as a regular stand-alone item,” following the ever growing ”…violence, especially abuse by [Cameroon]state forces…”, and for “[t]he Cameroon government [to] allow unhindered access to international and national human rights organizations”. We want to express our full support for the demands in this letter.

Human Rights and democracy are so unimportant to Mr. Falls he did not used both words in his speech to the council. Instead he droned ceaselessly about stability.

To the Potemkin institutions and total lack of commitment to solving the Ambazonia-Cameroon conflict described by the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs to congress a few days ago, Mr. Falls said He “took note of efforts by the Cameroon government to find a lasting solution to the Crisis…” and asked the UN to fund the Potemkin institutions.

Mr. Falls claimed the situation has improved. His evidence being “a number of high profile visits and public statements .” Except this public statements are by Dion Ngute the new prime minister. In previous security council briefings Mr. Falls had indicated that similar pointless statements by the former prime minister Yang were signs of progress.

Fall goes on to repeat the pointless talking point of the Cameroon regime, that the world should allow the regime to find a solution by itself even as he ignored UNOCHA’s April 2019 report of more than 4.3 Million people affected by the conflict.
We want to add our voice to that of sixteen major human rights organisations and civil society organizations who signed the 7 February, 2019, petition, calling on the UN to Mandate an International Independent Fact Finding Mission to stop the killings, establish the facts on the ground and begin the process of ending the conflict.

Item 4: We Unequivocally Stand with our Political Prisoners in their fight against Isolation by the Cameroon Regime

I want to end this briefing with an emphasis on our firm stand with our Ambazonia political prisoners in their resistance to isolation efforts by the Cameroon regime via efforts to transfer individual prisoners to unknown destinations. Like the failed efforts to Transfer 62 years old Pa Ngwa Ngaling Joseph to Mbalmayo.

Sign:

Vice President

Dabney Yerima

4, June 2019

Boko Haram launches multiple attacks on military bases in Nigeria, steals arms ⁰

Members of the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group have carried out multiple attacks on military bases in northeast Nigeria, seizing three of them and stealing weapons.

Militants of the terror group have invaded four bases in the volatile Borno State from Friday through Sunday in the recent series of attacks targeting the army, military sources said on Monday.

There were no immediate reports about possible casualties.

In the latest assault on Sunday, the militants failed to seize a base in the town of Dikwa, located in Borno State, following a predawn attack.

“The terrorists attacked troops in Dikwa around 4:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) but the attack was repelled without casualty on our side,” said a military officer, who did not want to be identified.

The assailants were driving 13 trucks fitted with heavy machine guns, said a second officer.

PressTV-Boko Haram kills 10 people in eastern Niger

On Saturday, the militants stormed a base in the town of Marte, which lies 40 kilometers away from Dikwa, forcing soldiers to withdraw after a long gunfight, the two military sources said.

As the soldiers retreated to Dikwa, the militants invaded another base in Kirenowa village, located 30 kilometers from Marte.

Troops in a base in Dalwa village, 16 kilometers outside Borno State’s capital of Maiduguri, were pushed out after a six-hour battle with the militants which continued into Sunday, said the military sources.

The fighting forced Marte residents to flee into Maiduguri, arriving in trucks on Sunday, according to residents of the city.

However, troops returned to the town late Sunday with reinforcement from Maiduguri, the sources said.

The Boko Haram terror group has since July last year targeted dozens of military bases in attacks that have left scores of troopers dead.

Boko Haram’s nine-year militancy is estimated to have killed more than 27,000 people and forced 1.8 million others to flee their homes.

Boko Haram’s sphere of activities spreads as far as neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

These countries have created a joint military force to stop the terrorists from further spreading, but sustained efforts to eradicate the militants have failed and the military continues to suffer heavy losses.

Source: Presstv

4, June 2019

The Truth About The Dr Sako Ikome – Ambazonia Interim Government Affair ⁰

As Ambazonians continue to deviate from the focal point of the Southern Cameroons revolution, its worth reminding Amba citizens that revolutions are never straightforward or predictable. Ever since the controversial Chairman Elvis Kometa confirmed that IG funds were used to pay the rents of disgraced former Acting President Dr Samuel Sako, our readers have expressed their frustration and anger at the fact that the IG could afford to squander huge financial resources when thousands of Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Ground Zero were desperately seeking for support. Thousands of Ambazonia refugees in Nigeria and IDPs are in need of basic human amenities. To be sure, nothing came under Sako’s leadership.

Three weeks ago, Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report opened a joint investigation to uncover the truth about the Sako-IG Affair. The process was challenging but rewarding. We found out that immediately after his appointment as the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sako’s maiden call to the cabinet was that he needed $450 to repair his car. This amount was made available to him at lightning speed as a goodwill gesture by the treasury department. Our whistle-blower later opined that Dr Ikome Sako owned no car at the time of the said request. Later that day, he met with a cross section of the exiled cabinet and made another demand for more money citing his rents. During that meeting, Dr Ikome Sako also pleaded that he needed to be relocated for security reasons. The cabinet ministers were unanimous in their decision in support of the relocation. The house he lived in was dilapidated and looked like an abandoned Shakespearean building.

The agreement was for Pastor Ikome Sako to pay a portion of the new lease. However, as the IG was looking for a new accommodation that befits an Acting President, Sako moved his entire family into a hotel all paid from donations intended for Ground Zero. Sako made matters more intractable when he made another request insisting on relocating to a posh area where the cost of accommodation was $2500 a month excluding utility bills. Our chief intelligence officer in the USA has facsimiles of IG documents revealing that all Sako’s utility bills were paid for by the Ambazonia Interim Government including gas, electricity and local rates.

Immediately after settling in his new comfortable presidential home, Dr Sako surprised members of the Ambazonia Cabinet again!! This time around, the man of God informed the Interim Government that he needed $1000 to pay for his immigration paperwork to be regularised so he could travel outside the USA. Alarm bells started ringing but the IG was already in a marriage and the need to keep the Southern Cameroons revolution going was prominent on the agenda. IG classified papers show that the said amount was handed to him. One of most pathetic and appalling revelation made to our cream of reporters covering the IG was that Pastor Samuel Ikome’s children started going to school on UBER rides all paid for by the Ambazonia Interim Government. This was facilitated due to the fact that Sako had a government debit card. We can now reveal that Sako’s monthly expenses came up to approximately $8000.

This document shows Sako paying 3 different insurance on the same day

Sako’s Meteoric Rise

The disgraced former Acting President had lost his job as a security officer two weeks prior to his appointment as Acting President. His wife, a hairdresser, was the breadwinner as Sako’s venture at selling Christianity had failed woefully.

We gathered that the lease signed by the Ambazonia Interim Government for the property that Sako tenanted was for 12 months. With the financial scandal that rocked his reign and subsequent fiscal drought faced by the IG, the payments of Sako’s rents became irregular.

Ikome Sako’s landlord issued two eviction notices late last year. As the ‘free’ money dried-up, the lease couldn’t be renewed and we can confirm that on March 2019 he had no choice but to move to a modest and cheaper area of town. One of Sako’s acolytes who elected anonymity said ‘In Buea terms, Sako lived around Muea market before his rise to prominence. The IG moved and sponsored his twelve months stay in Governor Street. He has now moved to Small Soppo.’

For all the chanting by pro Sako comedians on social media that he is still the President, the people yelling unconditional support for him aren’t opening their wallets. A senior Southern Cameroonian who helped us during this investigation noted that ‘sadly the former acting First Lady has to go back to braiding hair to support this lazy and dishonest pastor’

Sako has set out over the last few weeks to prove his critics right. Never again will Ambazonians waste so much goodwill and financial resources on an individual.

Sessekou Asu Isong, London Bureau Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

4, June 2019

SONARA Meltdown: Prime Minister Dion Ngute is losing sleep ⁰

The newly minted Prime Minister of Cameroon, Dion Ngute, is losing sleep following the explosion at the country’s lone oil refinery located in his native southwest.

Mr. Ngute who spent a huge chunk of his time during his recent visit to the region dancing, is now suffering from insomnia, as the burden of getting the international community to come and rebuild the jinxed refinery rests on his fragile shoulders. Mr. Biya whose health has spiralled out of control lacks the credibility to mobilize resources from bilateral and multilateral sources.

After having spoken about the country’s sovereignty for a long time, the country’s authorities are now faced with the huge challenge of demonstrating that sovereignty by rebuilding the refinery without turning to those they have abused on several occasions.

Mr. Ngute will surely need to adopt a different rhetoric if he really wants to mobilize resources in record time. Times are hard and the adverse effects of SONARA’s meltdown are already emerging. The race against time is on, but has Dion Ngute got the right running shoes?

Kingsley Betek, the Cameroon Concord News Group‘s lead investigative reporter, will be providing updates on the state of confusion at the Star Building. He has been talking with senior officials of the Prime Minister’s Office and his thoughts will be yours in Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report, your best online platforms for the latest on Cameroon. Stay tuned!

4, June 2019

SONARA Palaver: Production halted, four units damaged after fire ⁰

Four units are down at Cameroon’s only refinery, but the shortage will be covered by imports starting on Tuesday, the energy minister said late on Sunday.

The 42,000 barrel-per-day Sonara refinery in Limbe declared a force majeure on Saturday after a tank exploded, causing a fire that halted output.

“Flames consumed four of the 13 production units, stopping all the Sonara refining process,” Minister of Water Resources and Energy Gaston Eloundou Essomba said. “The market will remain supplied by imports.”

Sonara, which is almost entirely state owned apart from a 4% stake held by Total, has a capacity of 2.1 million tonnes of crude a year.

It serves the whole country, so any delay in getting it back up and running has the potential to cause severe fuel shortages.

Source: Sunday Times