The bodies of eight young men were discovered in Cameroon’s restive Northwest anglophone region, an opposition MP and eyewitnesses told AFP on Friday.

Local residents found the bodies in the bush in the town of Menka. Photos of a dozen dead bodies circulated on social media. Violence between armed anglophone separatists and government forces occurs almost daily in the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region, following an escalation of the crisis in late 2016.

According to Menka residents, the Cameroonian army fended off an attack in the area in mid-May but soldiers returned overnight between Sunday and Monday. Many young people have been missing since.

“There have been some killings in Menka by the army,” Nji Tumasang, deputy of the first anglophone opposition party, the Social Democratic Front, told AFP.

“We think that at first glance they are civilians because no weapon was found on them. The husband of an activist from our party is among the victims.”

The Cameroonian government did not comment when approached by AFP.

Since anglophone separatists declared independence last October, dozens of officials and foreigners have been targeted for abduction.

Abductions are also used as a tool to enforce allegiance among locals who have not taken up the separatist cause.

Earlier this month, the US ambassador to Cameroon accused government forces of carrying out “targeted killings” and other abuses in the fight against independence-seeking militants.

The foreign ministry later expressed its “deep disapproval” of the comments made by US ambassador in Yaounde, Peter Barlerin.

The presence of a large English-speaking minority — about a fifth of Cameroon’s population of 22 million — dates back to the colonial period.

It was once a German colony that after World War I was divided between Britain and France.

In 1960, the French colony gained independence, becoming Cameroon, and the following year, the British-ruled Southern Cameroons was amalgamated into it, becoming the Northwest and Southwest Regions.

For years, resentment built among anglophones, fostered by perceived marginalisation in education, the judiciary and the economy at the hands of the French majority.

Demands for greater autonomy were rejected by 85-year-old President Paul Biya, in power for more than 35 years, leading to an escalation that saw the declaration of the self-described “Republic of Ambazonia” in October last year.

Source: Pulse.ng

Cameroon government forces have killed at least 30 Southern Cameroons civilians in Menka- Pinyin in the Northern Zone outside Bamenda, while another Biya regime attack on a small settlement in the Southern Zone of Mbalangi left 22 dead.  The death toll came a week after the US ambassador Peter Barlerin called on President Biya to stop the senseless killings of Ambazonians and to step down.

In Santa Sub Division, the Anglophone Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji reportedly planned and ordered government forces to use conventional explosives on innocent civilian population, a senior Roman Catholic clergy said.

The assault is part of an indiscriminate campaign by President Biya’s forces to retake control of the territory now known as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.  Cameroon Intelligence Report sources in Bamenda noted that there are no doctors to treat patients for severe gun wounds.

The Communication Secretary of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, Hon. Chris Anu who confirmed the genocide currently going on in the Santa sub constituency said the toll is expected to rise. The spokesperson for the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council Restoration Forces said it had identified 42 bodies so far. Exhausted and shell-shocked Southern Cameroons civilians have fled into the forest.

An 83 year old woman interviewed by our correspondent in Santa said she had gone three days without food. Others said the Francophone army had hoarded food and humiliated civilians, even shooting people trying to leave.

The UN offices in Yaounde and Calabar have warned of a humanitarian crisis in Southern Cameroons and in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The assault on Southern Cameroons for over two years now has devastated more that 72 towns and villages across the territory and damaged and destroyed more than a dozen schools. At least 1,500 Southern Cameroons civilians have been killed.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Sama Ernest in Santa

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) have so far registered 21,291 Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria.

This is the headcount of Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria since October 2017 when the francophone and anglophone crisis began in the neighbouring Central African country. The headcount showed that children and women constitute about 77 per cent of the refugee population.

The UNHCR, in a press statement on Thursday, said the refugees were living in 40 different locations across four states of Nigeria including Cross River, Benue, Akwa Ibom and Taraba, noting that the refugees have been arriving in Nigeria since October 2017.

The UN Refugee Agency, which stated that some of the refugees had to be relocated to a new site in Nigeria, said: “The essence of this relocation exercise by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and the Nigerian Government is to ensure that the Cameroonian refugees live in safety, and in respect of the international humanitarian norm that refugees should stay at least 50 kilometres from the borders.”

It said: “On May 22, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, moved some 331 Cameroonian refugees from Abande to Anyake, Kwande Local Government Area (LGA) settlement, in a move intended to help provide care and protection to people forced to abandon their homes mostly in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon.

“To date, UNHCR, together with the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), has registered some 21,291 refugees in Nigeria; children and women constituting 77 per cent of the refugee population.

“Living in 40 different locations across four states – Cross River, Benue, Akwa Ibom, and Taraba – the refugees have been arriving in Nigeria since October 2017.”

The press statement read that while addressing the community leaders and members of the host community who were gathered to witness and welcome the arrival of the refugees in Anyake, Boubacar Bamba, the Assistant Representative for Operations stated that UNHCR is actively engaged with partners and the government authorities to find creative ways to address the current refugee situation more sustainably.

He explained that: “Refugees who can learn, contribute, and provide for their families in exile are better placed to rebuild their lives anywhere – including at home once it’s safe to return.”

The statement claimed that Emmanuel Shior, the Executive Secretary of the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, commended UNHCR for its active role and commitment to responding with the much-needed assistance for the Cameroonian refugees.

He promised that two members of staff who were stationed in Abande will be redeployed to Anyake, where they will continue to provide support as the refugees settle into their new environment.

Over the past few months, UNHCR, state authorities, Norwegian Church Aid, and the residents of the host community worked tirelessly to construct a transit site, two multipurpose housing facilities, 32 temporary shelters, and 24 latrines in preparation for the move to Anyake, located 66 kilometres from Abande, Benue State.

Over the next few months, there will be more voluntary relocations to Anyake settlement, which can host some 3,000 to 4,000 Cameroonian refugees.

Source: thisdaylive.com

Four tourists from Cameroon who allegedly duped people of their money were arrested in Quezon City on Wednesday.

Bame Jacob, 42; Ogie Oscar Mbang, 48; Tangang Yannick Ndare, 27; and Aly Camara, 33, were arrested in an entrapment operation at the parking lot of a mall on North EDSA at around 7:30 p.m.

They are facing charges of estafa and illegal possession and use of false treasury or bank notes and other instruments of credit.

“I have directed our investigators to check their records at the Bureau of Immigration. We need to verify their passports,” Director Camilo Cascolan, chief of the National Capital Region Police Office, said in a news briefing yesterday.

Michael Amungwa,42, also a Cameroonian, and Ma. Ruby Verzosa, a 55-year-old Filipina, were arrested at the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) headquarters yesterday after they reportedly tried to bribe policemen with P200,000 to release the suspects.

Amungwa denied they were bribing police officers and insisted the money is for a police clearance.

According to QCPD director Chief Superintendent Joselito Esquivel Jr., four people complained that they were duped into investing P300,000 in a money-making scheme involving the use of a chemical to produce counterfeit dollar bills.

Source: www.philstar.com

The situation in English-speaking regions of Cameroon is “marked by blind, inhuman, monstrous violence and by a radicalisation of positions that alarm us,” said the president of the Cameroon bishops’ conference.

“Let us stop all forms of violence and let us stop killing each other,” said Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala, the president, in a statement May 16. “Let us save our country from an unfounded and useless civil war.”

Caritas Internationalis, in an appeal launched May 15, reported that the conflict in Cameroon “has forced 160,000 people out of their homes into the bush and a further 26,000 to cross into Nigeria as they flee regions ‘stalked by fear and death.’ Whether a person speaks English or French has become a reason to kill.”

Tensions between Cameroon’s French-speaking majority and English-speaking minority have been growing since late 2016 when lawyers and then teachers in the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon went on strike to protest the appointment of French-speaking judges and the use of French in schools. In October, English-speaking separatists declared an independent state, “Ambazonia.”

Archbishop Kleda’s statement said, “the brutal repression of the army against an independence movement in the English-speaking regions of the country” has fuelled an escalation of the humanitarian crisis.

“Not a week goes by without houses being burned down, people kidnapped or killed. Fear has taken over this territory,” wrote Hippolyte Sando of Caritas Cameroon in a letter March 28 from Mamfe, a diocese in the southwest which Caritas described as being at the “epicenter” of the violence.

“The village of Kembong is a typical example of the suffering of the people. Here, young and old alike have been sleeping in the forest since Sept. 29,” Sando wrote. “Two priests and a hundred or so villagers spent months living in the compound of Bishop Andrew Nkea of Mamfe, and it was only recently that they cautiously agreed to go back to their villages on the condition that they would no longer be attacked.”

The diocesan, national and international Caritas organisations are mobilising to provide emergency aid both within Cameroon and across the border in Nigeria where many of the refugees have sought shelter and safety.

Source: The Tablet

Nigeria’s security forces have been accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during its fight against Islamist insurgency Boko Haram.

A new report released by Amnesty International on Thursday reveals how the crimes were perpetrated for years and have continued despite a presidential inquiry established last August.

In some cases, the abuse appears to be part of a pattern of persecution of anyone perceived to have a connection to Boko Haram.

According to Amnesty’s report, interviewees “said that when the military conducted operations in their villages, they burnt down homes and opened fire at remaining residents indiscriminately.”

“It is absolutely shocking that people who had already suffered so much under Boko Haram have been condemned to further horrendous abuse by the Nigerian military,” said Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

The human rights watchdog has accused Nigerian security forces of raping thousands of women and girls at the Internally Displaced Persons camps in the country.

“Instead of receiving protection from the authorities, women and girls have been forced to succumb to rape in order to avoid starvation or hunger,” added Ojigho.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters has accused Amnesty International of planning to destabilize the country. The military had announced on Wednesday that it received credible intelligence report of a plan by the human rights body to release what it calls a false report.

“The Defence Headquarters therefore, urge all law abiding citizens to continue to trust and support the military in the ongoing war against Boko Haram and go about their normal lawful business,” read an extract from the military statement.

Nigeria has waged a nine-year war against Boko Haram. Over 2 million people have been displaced and thousands have been killed.

Source: Africa News

The war that Cameroon’s government declared on armed separatists fighting for the independence of the English-speaking regions from the bilingual English/Francophone country is leaving many casualties among both the military and the insurgents. Hundreds have died in the fighting that is now in its sixth month — and hundreds more are missing.

A military ambulance rushes to the Yaounde military hospital on Tuesday with four people wounded in a flare-up of fighting in the English-speaking southwestern towns of Bangem and Mamfe.

Among the medical staff on duty is Doctor Kaldadak Koufagued. He says they got word that a military helicopter was bringing three Cameroon army soldiers and a notorious suspected armed separatist who sustained fractures in a heavy gun battle.

He says all staff in the military hospital are mobilized to receive patients as soon as they receive signs of casualties from the war front. He says that in treating the wounded, they do not distinguish between Cameroon soldiers or armed separatists, but once treated, the military takes suspected terrorists and armed separatists into custody so they can face charges in the military tribunal.

Koufagued says three of the wounded Tuesday have gone into hypovolemic shock, a life-threatening condition that occurs when persons lose more than 20 percent of their blood. Another of the wounded fighters is suffering from psychological trauma.

There are about 60 wounded persons in the hospital. VOA is only authorized to interview soldiers who are now recovering. Sergeant Achilles Nomo Atouba says he woke up in the hospital two weeks ago after he lost consciousness when his military convoy was attacked.

He says the convoy was ambushed by armed separatists as it escorted government officials to the southwestern town of Akwaya. He says he does not know how he got to the hospital and remembers only there was heavy shooting.

Quartermaster Second-class Abaicho Abba has had parts of his legs amputated. He says he is sure the terrorists he was sent to infiltrate as an informant discovered his true identity.

He says he got three gunshots to his legs when he fought back after three heavily armed men on motorcycles attacked him. He says he was dispatched to serve as an informant for Cameroon military.

Aside from the hospital in Yaounde, 20 wounded persons are being treated at the military hospital in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala. Others are receiving treatment at hospitals in towns considered safer in the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions. The government says only complicated cases are referred to specialized military hospitals.

Violence broke out in the English-speaking northwest and southwest in November 2016 when a strike by English-speaking lawyers and teachers against what they said was marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority degenerated into calls for secession. Suspected separatists torched schools and public buildings and the government responded with a crackdown. A year later, president Paul Biya declared war on the separatists, whom he labelled terrorists.

Julius Ayuk Tabe, president of the self-declared breakaway English-speaking state of Ambazonia that is made up of the Anglophone regions, was arrested in Nigeria with 47 collaborators in January and extradited to Cameroon. They have not been seen since then.

The armed separatists have vowed to continue fighting until they are released and are granted independence.

More than 70 villages have been torched and the United Nations reports hundreds of thousands have fled to the forests and towns in the French speaking-regions. At least 20,000 have crossed into Nigeria. Two hundred have died and hundreds are missing.

Culled from VOA

Cameroonian authorities have summoned the United States’ ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to have him explain his earlier anti-government comments.

US Ambassador Peter Barlerin was called in to the Cameroonian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

Earlier, on May 18, Barlerin had accused government forces of the “targeted killing” of separatists in the autonomy-seeking English-speaking regions of the country.

“On the side of the government, there have been targeted killings, detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red Cross, and burning and looting of villages,” he had alleged in a statement. He had also accused the separatists of “murders of gendarmes, kidnapping of government officials, and burning of schools.”

In related news on Tuesday, the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said around 160,000 people had been internally displaced by the fighting between government forces and separatists in Cameroon. Some 20,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Nigeria, according to OCHA.

In 2016, separatists from the Anglophone community in the country stepped up a campaign for greater autonomy.

The minority accounts for about a fifth of the country’s population of 22 million.

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has rejected the Anglophones’ autonomy demands, prompting radicals to issue a full-blown but symbolic declaration of independence last October.

Armed clashes then ensued between government forces and the separatists.

Many Anglophones in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon complain of marginalization in education, the judiciary, and the economy.

Since the end of 2016, at least 120 civilians and at least 43 security forces have been killed in the fighting, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

Source: Presstv

Kidnappings are proliferating in Cameroon’s violence-torn English-speaking region, where officials, foreigners and locals alike are finding themselves targeted for abduction.

Since anglophone separatists declared independence last October, dozens of people have gone missing — on average, a fresh case is reported by the local media every week.

“At least 50 people have keen kidnapped,” Felix Agbor Ngonkho, of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, told AFP. Many more abductions are probably not even been reported, he added.

“It has become impossible for a Cameroonian car carrying foreigners or bearing the licence plate of a French-speaking region to travel through the English-speaking regions without being attacked by armed men emerging from the forest,” a human rights activist said.

Kidnappings, say commentators, have been adopted as a tool for separatists to enforce discipline in anti-government protests and instil fear among French-speaking officials, almost regardless of rank.

“The separatists have a guerrilla mentality that involves control of the region and the population,” said Hans De Marie Heungoup, Central Africa analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

“The kidnappings are part of this logic, a tool to enforce allegiance to those who haven’t taken up the separatist cause.”

The presence of a large English-speaking minority — about a fifth of Cameroon’s population of 22 million — dates back to the colonial period.

It was once a German colony that after World War I was divided between Britain and France.

In 1960, the French colony gained independence, becoming Cameroon, and the following year, the British-ruled Southern Cameroons was amalgamated into it, becoming the Northwest and Southwest Regions.

For years, resentment built among anglophones, fostered by perceived marginalisation in education, the judiciary and the economy at the hands of the French majority.

Demands for greater autonomy were rejected by 85-year-old President Paul Biya, in power for more than 35 years, leading to an escalation that last October 1 led to the declaration of the self-described “Republic of Ambazonia”.

– ‘Dirty war’ –

Clashes are now an everyday occurrence, leading to scores of fatalities among separatists and police and military alike.

But in what local people are calling a “dirty war,” civilians are also suffering badly, at the hands of the security forces — accused by the US last week of “targeted killings” and the burning and looting of villages — and of the separatists.

In one instance, a teacher was gunned down at a school in the town of Muyuka, in the Southwest Region, when three armed men riding motorcycles fired gunshots as they sped past.

Two Tunisians working near Kumba in the Southwest were abducted in late March. One of them was later killed.

The following month a group of Western tourists were briefly kidnapped in the same region.

Separatist fighters have torched numerous school buildings and early this month kidnapped a priest who was headmaster of a Catholic boarding school.

The priest was seized the day after St Bede’s College received a televised visit from the regional governor.

It was the first time the church had been pulled into the regional struggle.

The abducted priest was freed the following day and the Catholic church has called on all parties to avoid “a useless and unwarranted civil war”.

– Favoured targets –

But officials and symbols of Yaounde’s centralised power remain the favoured targets for the separatists.

Last month, the head of the appeal court in the Southwest Region was kidnapped then released a few days later.

Two local officials seized in February in the Northwest Region remain missing.

“There are kidnappings for ransom, with the separatists seeking 20,000, 30,000 francs ($35-$54) from the families. And there are others, those they keep,” said a local human rights activists who didn’t want to be named.

Nine employees of a construction company have been missing since December. Only the burned-out shells of the vehicles they were travelling in have been found.

“We live with the anxiety. If they have been killed, then let us know so we can mourn. If they are being held captive somewhere, then we want their captors to tell us what it will take to get them released,” said Oumarou, a brother of one of the missing men. 

Source: capitalfm.co.ke