12, January 2018
Nigerian Foreign Minister confirms arrest of Ambazonia leaders in Abuja 0
A human-rights lawyer representing English-speaking Cameroonian separatists said Thursday the group had been arrested by Nigeria’s secret service and were being held “illegally”, calling on the government to probe their disappearance. Femi Falana Femi Falana said Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the president of the anglophone separatist movement in Cameroon, and nine others were detained at a hotel in Abuja last weekend. “Armed operatives of the State Security Service (Nigeria’s secret service) invaded the venue, abducted our clients and took them away to an undisclosed place,” he said. The intelligence agency has denied any arrests but rumours have swirled about the men’s possible whereabouts.
Nigeria’s foreign minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, on Wednesday told reporters he had met the security agencies and said questions remained about the identity of those detained. “I don’t know whether to call it an arrest or it could be people just called in for questioning or whatever. The investigations are ongoing,” he said after a cabinet meeting. Falana, however, called for his clients to be either released from “illegal custody” or charged within 48 hours, threatening court action “to secure the enforcement of their fundamental rights to personal liberty”. The leaders have not been in contact with their families or legal team, he said, adding he had “confirmed” the government in Yaoundé had asked Abuja to repatriate the men. “Our clients are not illegal immigrants in Nigeria as some of them have been granted political asylum by the federal government while others have valid permanent resident status in Nigeria,” said Falana.
On October 1, the breakaway Anglophone movement issued a symbolic declaration of independence for “Ambazonia”, claiming autonomy over English-speaking regions in the country. Cameroon’s President Paul Biya fiercely opposes secession and has met the agitation with a crackdown, including curfews, raids and restrictions on travel. Thousands of refugees have flooded the border into Nigeria to escape the violence. International monitors say at least 20 and possibly 40 people have been killed in clashes since late September, though the Biya government fiercely disputes the death toll. The Anglophone minority dates to the emergence of Cameroon in 1960-61, as France and Britain wound down their colonies in west Africa.
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12, January 2018
4 dead in two Boko Haram attacks in Cameroon 0
Four people were killed and two others kidnapped in separate overnight attacks in the far north of Cameroon, blamed on the Islamist group Boko Haram, sources told AFP on Thursday. Three of the victims were “slaughtered” in Kolofata, a town which borders Nigeria and that has seen a spate of attacks blamed on the jihadists, said a source close to the security services.
A security officer in the region confirmed the information to AFP, and that two people were also abducted. In a second overnight attack, Boko Haram fighters are believed to have killed one person and injured another in nearby Ashigashiya, also by the Nigerian border, said the security officer. The jihadists also burned some 60 boxes of grain and motorcycles, he added. The attacks come after Cameroon and three other West African states launched a major offensive against the jihadist group in Borno state, in north east Nigeria this week.
Cameroon soldiers, along with troops from Chad, Nigeria and Niger, are targeting a Boko Haram faction led by Abubakar Shekau in the Sambisa Forest, and another led by Mamman Nur, on and around Lake Chad.
According to the Nigerian military, scores of jihadists have been killed and hundreds of others have been forced to surrender in recent days. Boko Haram began its bloody insurgency in Nigeria in 2009, seeking to install an extremist Islamic state in the country. The militants began cross-border attacks in 2014, and have regularly carried out raids in Cameroon, killing, looting and kidnapping villagers.
Since 2014, Cameroon has been fighting a military campaign against the group, including cross-border operations with Nigerian troops. But the group is estimated to have killed some 2,000 civilians and soldiers, and abducted more than a thousand people, in the last four years. Across the region, violence committed by Boko Haram has killed at least 20,000 and displaced more than 2.6 million people.
Source:AFP