People are deserting the English-speaking regions of Cameroon after hundreds of armed separatists and the military were involved in Tuesday’s bloody conflicts in five towns and villages leaving at least 15 people dead. Residents complain that the army was slow in responding to simultaneous attacks by the separatists.

Intensive shooting between an unknown number of armed separatists and at least 50 soldiers of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR, an elite corps of Cameroon’s military is going on at Mile 16, Bolifamba, a neighborhood in the southwestern town of Buea.

As the military shoots, some of the troops clear the wreckage of vehicles, abandoned containers, trees and heavy metals that the armed separatists are said to have used in blocking all entrances into the town before the military arrived. The military said the attackers also burned vehicles, houses and shops.

Some residents are rushing to various destinations, including the bush.

Businessman Peter Bongkiyung, 24, says he saw two corpses, including that of a soldier, and no longer feels safe in the town.

“I am still believing that, come whatever, I have to go,” he said.

Jenine Ita, a 47-year-old jurist working in the town, is also leaving with her three children and wounded husband. She says the armed men invaded Mile 16 as early as 5 a.m. Tuesday, blocking the road and setting some transport buses on fire. Ita said she was surprised that the military, stationed at various entrances to the town, came late.

“We cannot continue living in such an environment where you cannot trust your neighbor. Where are the armed men coming from? How do they get into town without the knowledge of the military?” she said.

Similar simultaneous attacks were reported in four other villages in the Northwest and Southwest regions including Bamenda. Mamfe and Wum.

Bernard Okalia Bilai, governor of the Southwest region, said he is pleading with the separatists to drop their guns and stop the carnage. He said next month’s presidential election should offer an opportunity for them to democratically express their views should they be disgruntled with the government.

“The presidential election is a very important moment for all the countries in the world and the southwest should not miss to be fully involved in the presidential election on October 7. We should stop the killings, the kidnappings, the disturbances and all the nuisance that the present crisis has brought in our region,” he said.

The government has been assuring voters that they will be protected.

Unrest in Cameroon began in November 2016, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers demonstrated against the overbearing use of the French language. Separatists took over and started demanding the independence of the English-speaking from the French-speaking regions of the bilingual country.

Last Saturday, armed Anglophone separatists burned buses and blocked traffic into and out of the capital of the English-speaking Northwest region and said the action in Bamenda was to disrupt next month’s presidential election.

The United Nations reports that 300 people including 130 policemen and the military have been killed, hundreds of thousands have fled for their lives to the bushes and towns in the French-speaking regions. At least 20,000 crossed over to Nigeria.

Culled from the VOA

A gunman in the US state of California shot and killed six people, including himself and his wife, in a mass shooting that police say has become the “new normal” across the country.

The unidentified man went with his wife to a trucking company in Bakersfield, California, where he shot and killed a man and then turned his gun on his spouse, killing her, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a news conference on Wednesday.

He then chased another man from the trucking company before he shot and killed him in front of a nearby sports store.

The gunman then went to a home where he shot and killed a man and a woman, the sheriff said.

He killed himself shortly afterwards after being confronted by a sheriff’s deputy, Youngblood said.

“This is the new normal, if you look across this country,” Youngblood said, describing the incident as a mass shooting.

“Obviously, these are not random shootings,” he added. “Six people lost their lives in a very short period of time.”

Authorities were working to determine “why this started and why so many players were involved and the connection because obviously these are not random shootings,” Youngblood said.

The United States loses around 33,000 people to gun violence every year. Additionally, more than 100,000 people are shot each year in the country at a total cost of $45 billion, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs.

Amnesty International said in a scathing report Wednesday that the gun violence situation in the United States has grown into a full blown “human rights crisis” amid inaction from the US government.

The report said “all aspects of American life have been compromised in some way by the unfettered access to guns, with no attempts at meaningful national regulation.”

“The US government is prioritizing gun ownership over basic human rights. While many solutions have been offered, there has been a stunning lack of political will to save lives,” said Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

“Our government has allowed gun violence to become a human rights crisis,” she said.

The issue of gun violence has become all the more polarizing under President Donald Trump, a Republican whose presidential campaign was funded partially by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Trump has been reluctant to address the growing issue in his speeches and following several high-profile mass shootings in the country.

Source: Presstv

Ambazonian Acting President Dr.  Samuel Ikome Sako, Communications Secretary Chris Anu including the former leaders of the Southern Cameroons struggle Mark Bareta, Tapang Ivo, and John Mbah Akuroh, are amongst those targeted by the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Yaoundé.

According to a facsimile of an unverifiable order purportedly issued by the National Police boss, Mbarga Nguele, Cameroon ambassadors in the countries concerned have been directed to leverage support of the international police (INTERPOL) to enforce the directive with the utmost urgency and secrecy; suggesting, some activists might be secretly kidnapped where possible or summarily executed by hit men paid by the regime.

“The press release appears to be an act of desperation, but if Biya thinks western countries are Banana republics like Nigeria, then he is mistaken. Any attempt to arrest, kidnap let alone assassinate any Ambazonia activists abroad, without due process, will obviously spark the beginning of the end of the regime” noted our contributing editor in the USA.

The Diaspora has been financing the war and the fighters on the ground have been giving the government a run for its money. So far, more than 1,000 army soldiers have been killed while it is estimated that some 3,000 civilians have been murdered by French Cameroun government troops.

The government’s strategy of collective punishment and the burning of home have not produced the desired results. On the contrary, they have been counterproductive.  Many moderate Southern Cameroonians have been radicalized by the government’s strategy and this is making it hard for the soldiers to wrap up things militarily.

In a desperate move, the government has issued a warrant of arrest for many members of the Interim Government, including Dr. Sako Ikome and Mr. Chris Anu. The warrant, signed by the country’s national security chief, Martin Mbarga Nguele, urges all Cameroon embassies abroad to take appropriate measures and if possible kill those whose names feature on the warrant. The government seems to have been cornered. It is fighting with its back to the wall. A war it thought it could wrap up in a few weeks is unfortunately taking too long.

By Chi Prudence Asong and Kingsley Betek

Hurricane Florence, on track to become the first Category 4 storm to make a direct hit on North Carolina in six decades, howled closer to shore on Wednesday, threatening to unleash pounding surf, days of torrential rain and severe flooding.

Packing maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour (225 km per hour), Florence’s trajectory showed its center most likely to strike the southern coast of North Carolina by Friday, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm is expected to bring tropical storm-force winds, life-threatening storm surges of seawater and 35 inches (89 cm) of rain to parts of the Carolinas and Virginia, where intense inland flooding was expected, the center said.

“This is a life-threatening situation,” the center said in an early morning bulletin. “Persons located within these areas should take all necessary actions to protect life and property.”

More than 1 million residents have been ordered to evacuate the coastline of the three states, while university campuses, schools and factories were being shuttered.

To hasten evacuations from coastal South Carolina, officials reversed the flow of traffic on some highways so all major roads led away from shore.

“This storm is a monster,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said. He cited forecasts showing Florence was likely to stall over North Carolina, “bringing days and days of rain.”

Fierce winds and massive waves are expected to lash the coasts of North and South Carolina and Virginia even before Florence makes landfall bringing a storm surge as much as 13 feet (4 meters), the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned. Catastrophic floods could follow if the storm stalls inland, it said.

The storm, a Category 4 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, was expected to grow stronger and larger over the next few days, the NHC said.

The last Category 4 hurricane to plow directly into North Carolina was Hazel in 1954, a devastating storm that killed 19 people.

Communities could lose electricity for weeks, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Brock Long said.

Crews also prepared 16 nuclear reactors in the three-state region for the storm.

The American Red Cross said more than 700 workers were headed to the region while shelters were set up to house those unable to flee.

The US Coast Guard closed ports in Wilmington and Morehead City, North Carolina and Hampton Roads, Virginia to inbound vessels greater than 500 tons and was requiring vessels of that size to leave if they did not have permission to be in the ports.

Residents prepared by boarding up their homes and stocking up on food, water and other essentials, stripping grocery store shelves of merchandise. Many gasoline stations were running low on fuel.

(Source: Reuters)

Visas have reportedly been denied to UN invited witnesses from Nigeria and Cameroon but UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his deputy have said and done nothing, despite formal written questions from the much respected Inner City Press Guterres banned from the UN for 70 days.

As the Cameroon government of 36 year President Paul Biya slaughters civilians in the Anglophone regions as well as in the North, it re-engaged Washington lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs and Mercury Public Affairs, documents show. The UN belatedly acknowledged to Inner City Press, which Guterres had roughed up on July 3 right after it spoke to Cameroon’s Ambassador Tommo Monthe and on August 17 declared banned for life from entering the UN.

For close to two years, the situation in Southern Cameroons has continued to deteriorate and nobody, not even the government, believes that it is time to change course.

The killings have continued on both sides, but the government still holds that a swift military victory is possible before the presidential election that will take place next month. The hardship in the two English-speaking regions of the country has increased exponentially over the last year and all what is on the minds of government authorities is keeping the people in check.

Yaoundé authorities seem to be frozen in time. In other places, the rule is for dialogue to ensure that things do not deteriorate, but ever since the conflict started, the government has kept on insisting on using an iron fist instead of an olive branch.

Many analysts are wondering when the killing and madness will come to an end. They hold that a different approach could have produced different results and this issue could have been laid to rest a long time ago.

The little infrastructure the two regions possess is deteriorating on a daily basis as both parties do what they can to prove that they have an upper hand. Today, the road leading to Bamenda from East Cameroon has been destroyed by Southern Cameroonian fighters and this is going to cost the region a huge fortune.

By Chi Prundence Asong with files from Inner Press

New United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has expressed worry over the worsening security situation in Cameroon’s Anglophone region.

Bachelet intimated that the situation required urgent attention even though Yaounde had failed to take the lead in ensuring a resolution to the crisis.

She spoke about the economic, social and educational impact of hostilities by government forces and separatists, condemning attacks of teachers and students in the south-west and north-west regions.

Bachelet’s comments were part of her opening statement at the 39th session of the Human Rights Council on 10 September 2018. Her predecessor, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein had in several statements bemoaned the crisis and called for the government to pursue an immediate resolution.

Michelle Bachelet’s full comments on Cameroon

The situation in Cameroon has also worsened in recent months, as fighting has intensified in the so-called Anglophone regions between security forces and armed groups, with a large number of civilian victims and over 180,000 people forced to take refuge far from their homes – now in pressing need of humanitarian assistance.

Many economic activities across these regions are now paralyzed. In this volatile security context, many people fear reprisals if they participate in the Presidential elections scheduled next month.

The Government has not acted to promote the conference on dialogue suggested by religious leaders, and there is still no mechanism in place which could envisage a halt in hostilities in the short term.

We strongly condemn reports of the killing and abductions of teachers and students and the destruction of schools by armed elements in the north-west and south-west regions. These acts of intimidation are preventing thousands of children from attending school.

We note that the Government has opened investigations into several atrocious crimes apparently committed by members of the military, and urge swift and effective action to ensure all the perpetrators of human rights violations are held accountable.

Due process should also be guaranteed for all those detained in connection with terrorism, and we urge the Government to address key grievances, in order to foster peaceful resolution of this crisis.

Source: Africa News