Ambazonia Refugee Situation Update: UN says 58,415 are now registered in Nigeria

31, December 2020

Ambazonia Refugee Situation Update: UN says 58,415 are now registered in Nigeria 0

58,415 Southern Cameroonian refugees are registered in Akwa-Ibom, Benue, Cross River and Taraba States in Nigeria.

Amid the COVID19 (C19) pandemic, UNHCR organized World Refugee Day celebration on 20 June for Southern Cameroons refugees and members of the host communities in Benue, Cross River and Taraba States. The theme for this year’s commemoration was “Everyone Can Make a Difference, Every Action Counts”.

On 29 June, the Office commissioned a solar-powered borehole with a 32,000-litre of water per day capacity, five tap/water collection points and more than 1km pipe network in Ndok Community, Ogoja Local Government Area (LGA), and Cross River State (CRS). In late 2019, the community donated 100 hectares of farmland to promote livelihoods for Southern Cameroonian refugees – a majority of whom are farmers. The Traditional Rulers and Government Officials present at the event pledged their continued support to Southern Cameroonian refugees and good maintenance of the borehole.

By Enowtaku Ebanghatabi Christelle with files from Reliefweb.int

Germany to face ‘difficult times’ with COVID-19 in 2021: Dr Merkel

31, December 2020

Germany to face ‘difficult times’ with COVID-19 in 2021: Dr Merkel 0

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her country’s “historic” coronavirus crisis will extend into 2021 even if the vaccines bring some hope.

As part of her New Year’s greetings on Thursday, Merkel denounced the conspiracy theories advanced by virus sceptics as not just “false and dangerous” but “cynical and cruel” towards those who had suffered during the pandemic.

“These days and these weeks … are difficult times for our country,” Merkel warned. “And that is going to last for a good while yet.”

Speaking in what will be her final New Year’s address as chancellor after four terms in office, Merkel’s message was characteristically sober.

“Winter remains difficult,” she said. “The challenges that the pandemic pose remain immense.”

Merkel thanked what she said was the vast majority of Germans who had abided by the safety restrictions imposed by the authorities to try to check the spread of the virus.

But she had harsh words for the virus sceptics, many of whom have taken their protests to the streets, some of them ignoring safety measures such as wearing masks.

“I can only imagine the bitterness felt by those who are mourning a loved one because of the coronavirus, or those who are still suffering its after-effects, when the existence of the virus is disputed or denied by some,” she said.

“The conspiracy theories are not only false and dangerous, they are also cynical and cruel towards these people,” she added.

There was nevertheless hope for the coming year, she added.

“For some days, hope has a new face: That of the first vaccinated people” in retirement homes and among health workers, said Merkel.

In her 15 years in power, she added, “Never have we, despite the worries, been in such a hurry to enter a new year.”

Germany, praised for its handling of the first wave, has been hit hard by a second wave.

More than 32,000 people have now died from the virus in Germany, and on Wednesday the daily death toll passed 1,000 for the first time – although officials say this was partly due to late reporting of earlier figures.

The country is under a partial lockdown until Jan 10, with most shops closed along with schools, restaurants, cultural and leisure facilities.

New Year’s Eve festivities will be muted, with a ban on the sale of fireworks and tight restrictions on the number of people who can gather in public.

(Source: AFP)

In a few hours’ time, Cameroon’s Misleader and Liar-in-Chief, Paul Biya, will be addressing the nation

31, December 2020

In a few hours’ time, Cameroon’s Misleader and Liar-in-Chief, Paul Biya, will be addressing the nation 0

Dear readers, correspondents, members and volunteers,

Another year ends today and a new one starts tomorrow. This year has been particularly challenging, but we have demonstrated the stuff we are made of.

The Novel Coronavirus also known as COVID-19 has been a huge millstone around our necks. It has not only interfered with your news platform of choice, it has also made it hard for us to obtain all the funding necessary for our operations.

However, despite the challenging times, we have used our shoestring budget to deliver to you, in real time, the news that has enabled you to have a balanced perspective of the unfortunate situations that have been playing out in our country, Cameroon.

Cameroon is faced with many challenges and most of the challenges are derived from the incompetence of our country’s authorities.

Their lack of humility and corruption has pushed our country to the brink. A once prosperous nation has been pushed to the abyss of poverty by a bunch of incompetent and corrupt individuals.

For a country to develop and avoid certain messy circumstances, its authorities must be willing to listen to the people, they must establish a good relationship with the grassroots and they demonstrate the determination necessary to address the issues in a manner that will bring total satisfaction to the majority of the population.

As you all know, the Southern Cameroons crisis is born out of the arrogance of our country’s (mis) leaders. In the process, some 6,000 Southern Cameroonians have been sent to an early grave while more than 2,000 soldiers have lost their lives.

Sources close to the country’s defense ministry say some 1,000 soldiers have either defected or walked away from the country’s military because they do not believe they must die for a man and a system that clearly belong to the past.

That tells you how things are gradually bottoming out in our country. The ministry of defense cannot account for such disappearances and instead of consoling the families affected by the chaos the government has created, it is instead threatening the families of the missing soldiers with imprisonment. That is your country. That is the place you call home. Homeland has become gangland.

In a few hours’ time, the country’s misleader and liar-in-chief, Paul Biya, will be addressing the nation again and his traditional speech will be replete with lies.

He will be telling you how the economy is at its best even when hundreds of thousands of our graduates are unemployed, with thousands seeking to quit the country for greener pastures in distant lands.

He will also mislead you on the state of our democracy by pointing to the pre-fabricated regional election results which he will consider as a mark of “Advanced Democracy “making significant progress. The recent elections should not be taken seriously. They do not deserve your time and attention. It is one more piece of evidence that Biya is not ready to change his old, bad and corrupt ways.

Don’t be fooled by those misleading stories. The elections were designed to ensure that the crime syndicate that has been ruling the country for close to four decades continues to lead you by the nose.

The liar-in-chief is simply seeking to perpetuate himself in power, but know that all what he will be spewing out will simply be the ravings of a falling king.

Cameroon will change and it will change in a big bad way in the coming days. The Russians are in the region and they are determined to change the geopolitical equation.

They are gradually rolling back the French and it is obvious that Cameroon will be the next after the Central African Republic.

Russia needs a foothold in the region and Southern Cameroonians are prepared to facilitate things for them so that they can reach the heartland of our country.

All you need to do is to keep on supporting the Southern Cameroons Interim government under the stewardship of Vice President Dabney Yerima. You must continue to mount pressure on the Yaoundé government until our president, Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, and all the other Southern Cameroonians being held in East Cameroonian jails are set free.

Never forget that these people are in jail because they want a better Southern Cameroons. We should never forget people like Mancho Bibixy and Tassang Wilfred.

While we may disagree on the approach, we must understand that the objective is the same – making Southern Cameroons great again.

Please continue to do your part and the Cameroon Concord News Group will do its own.

Long live the Cameroon Concord News Group.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai on behalf of the Group and Board of Directors

Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report

Biya regime secures Economic Partnership Agreement with Britain

30, December 2020

Biya regime secures Economic Partnership Agreement with Britain 0

The United Kingdom and Cameroon have today secured an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that ensures mutual continuity of trade.

An agreement has been reached to roll over current EU-Cameroon trading arrangements from 1 January 2021.

The deal allows businesses to trade freely as they do now, without any additional barriers or tariffs, and provides a foundation to extend our trading relationship in future.

Total UK trade with Cameroon amounted to £200 million in 2019.

Top goods imports to the UK from Cameroon in 2019 were in fruit and nuts, mostly bananas (£27 million) and wood and wood products (£25 million). The UK market accounts for 12% of total exports of bananas from Cameroon and this agreement will maintain tariff-free market access to the UK. It also guarantees continued market access for UK exporters, who sold £51m in goods to Cameroon in 2019.

Minister for International Trade Ranil Jayawardena said:

The United Kingdom is committed to supporting developing countries by encouraging growth through trade. The preferential terms for their key exports, such as bananas, will support jobs and economic development in Cameroon, and make sure British consumers get the products they want.

Culled from www.gov.uk

Boko Haram kills 12 French Cameroun fishermen in Lake Chad

30, December 2020

Boko Haram kills 12 French Cameroun fishermen in Lake Chad 0

12 French Cameroun fishermen from Darak and Blangoua were killed by Boko Haram on Christmas Day in Lake Chad.

Darak and Blangoua, are two districts in the Far North region of French Cameroon, in the Logone-et-Chari Division. These two communes are situated on the Lake Chad basin.

Cameroon Concord News was reliably informed that Boko Haram militants arrived on motorbikes in Darak and started shooting in the air and burning houses. The jihadists reportedly caught seven men and slit their throats.

Local sources revealed that a small regiment of the French Cameroun army in the area arrived late. Correspondingly, the Boko Haram fighters had plenty of time to commit their crimes against innocent civilians.

“Dozens of people had just returned from their farms and some were resting, they were taken by surprise,” a local resident told state radio.

Five other lifeless bodies of members of the community were found by elements of the vigilance committee.

This attack on the villages of Darak and Blangoua comes after several assaults on numerous localities in the Far North.

In recent months, there has been an upsurge in violence and exactions by combatants of the Nigerian terrorist sect against the Cameroonian population.

The Biya regime has done all it can to reduce the international consequences of its failed militarization strategy against legitimate grievances in its Anglophone regions. Rather than seeking peace through political compromise and better governance, the regime confuses the international community by describing the crisis as a two-front war against “terrorists” and “criminals.”

After two years of painstaking research the international community is now aware that the Biya Francophone military operations against Anglophones in the Southwest and Northwest regions have noticeably weakened Cameroon’s efforts against Boko Haram and is now leading to broader regional insecurity.

Since 2019, Boko Haram has conducted larger-scale operations again, attacking Nigerian, Cameroonian, Nigerien and Chadian military targets and inflicting heavy casualties on soldiers and civilians alike. In late September, Nigeria’s Bornu state governor’s convoy was attacked twice in two days not far from the Cameroon border. But the Cameroonian regime is willing to ignore Islamist resurgence around Lake Chad because it perceives the Anglophone crisis as a bigger threat to its tight grip on power. And, unfortunately, it is confident the international community will again ride to the rescue if the situation appears out of control.

By Haggai Fung Achuo with additional reporting from Foreign Policy

Football Politics: CAF to elect new president

30, December 2020

Football Politics: CAF to elect new president 0

Malagasy Ahmad was a hot favourites to secure a second term as CAF president until FIFA barred him from all football activities for five years.

A FIFA statement said the 60 year old had “breached his duty of loyalty, offered gifts and other benefits, mismanaged funds and abused his position as the CAF president”.

With Ahmad sidelined, Ivorian Jacques Anouma, Mauritanian Ahmed Yahya, Senegalese Augustin Senghor and South African Patrice Motsepe will contest the election in Rabat on March 12.

Source: France 24

US and Black Lives: Federal probe ends without charging police in shooting of Tamir Rice

30, December 2020

US and Black Lives: Federal probe ends without charging police in shooting of Tamir Rice 0

The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it has closed its civil rights investigation into the fatal 2014 shooting by Cleveland police of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black youth, and that no federal criminal charges would be brought in the case.

The announcement came five years after an Ohio grand jury cleared two Cleveland officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, of state charges of wrongdoing in the death of Rice, who was shot in a playground while holding a toy gun capable of shooting pellets.

The slaying occurred when Loehmann, then a rookie on the Cleveland force, rolled up to the park in a police cruiser with Garmback at the wheel, then sprung from the vehicle and fired his gun twice at the youth within seconds, killing the boy.

Both men are white.

The incident was one of a flurry of high-profile killings of African-American people at the hands of U.S. law enforcement in recent years that have fueled protests giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement against racial injustice.

The two officers in the Rice case had been dispatched in response to a 911-emergency call reporting a suspect with a gun near a recreation center.

But crucial information the caller gave dispatchers – namely that the person in question was a juvenile and that the supposed weapon might be a toy – was never relayed to Loehmann and his partner before they reached the scene.

As a result, “the officers believed they were responding to a playground where a grown man was brandishing a real gun at individuals, presumably children,” the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in its six-page statement.

Moreover, security camera video of the November 2014 episode was found to be too grainy and taken from too great a distance to conclusively detail circumstances of the shooting, the statement said.

In closing the case without bringing charges, the department said it lacked sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either officer had willfully broken the law, as opposed to making a mistake or exercising poor judgment.

“Although Tamir Rice’s death is tragic … both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office concluded that this matter is not a prosecutable violation of the federal statutes,” the department said.

Although no criminal charges have been brought, the city agreed to pay $6 million to the boy’s family to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed in his death in April 2016.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors who previously investigated the killing have said Rice had either intended to hand over the toy weapon he was carrying – an Airsoft replica of a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun – or show officers it was not real, but that the two policemen had no way of knowing that.

The Airsoft normally comes with an orange tip on its barrel to distinguish it from an actual firearm, but the one Rice was holding at the time did not, prosecutors said.

The family’s attorney, Subodh Chandra, said Tamir’s mother is profoundly upset by news of Tuesday’s decision.

“Justice for the family would be to prosecute the officers who killed their child,” Chandra said.

Source: REUTERS

Wither the CEMAC Region: France investing in armed groups across Central African Republic

30, December 2020

Wither the CEMAC Region: France investing in armed groups across Central African Republic 0

Ever since the government of President Emmanuel Macron succeeded in reuniting the three main Central African Republic (CAR) armed groups, the willingness to bring down the legitimate administration in Bangui the capital has become not only urgent but imperative.

For the past few days, French Cameroonians living in the eastern localities bordering the Central African Republic have seen the arrival of not only civilians, but also military personnel.

 We now understand that some 127 Central African Republic soldiers arrived in Cameroon on December 23 with their equipment before being disarmed. Correspondingly, more than 2,000 civilians have already left CAR and entered Cameroon since the outbreak of recent violence.

The CAR refugees entered Cameroon through Garoua-Boulai sub division in Lom-et-Djerem Division.

The refugee camp located in Gado-Badzere is already hosting tens of thousands of Central African refugees since 2014 that fled the exactions of the Seleka and Anti-Balaka.  

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees now fears another massive arrival of Central African civilians in Cameroon as the two countries share a reputed border of about 1000 km. 

 On Sunday, three Cameroonian gendarmes were taken hostage by Central African rebels of the faction belonging to Abbas Sidiki, leader of the “3R” (Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation) Militia.

This Central African warlord is on the list of persons under US sanctions.

According to security sources, the three gendarmes are currently being detained in the Cameroonian town of Ngaoui in the Adamaoua region bordering the Central African Republic.

The rebels are demanding 15 million CFA francs each to free the Cameroonian soldiers. Negotiations are reportedly underway for their release.

By Rita Akana

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Suicide killing more French Cameroun troops than Amba Fighters

30, December 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Suicide killing more French Cameroun troops than Amba Fighters 0

Several servicemen and women of the Cameroon government army deployed to Southern Cameroons are turning their guns on themselves according to a secret released circulating in the Ministry of Defense in Yaoundé.

The document reportedly addressed to Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo in the French language and captioned “Suicide — not combat — is the main killer of soldiers deployed to North West and South West” stated that “Though Cameroon government casualties have been high ever since the war effort began four years ago, of ———— troops who have died in Operation, many of them took their own lives.”

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that no one within the supreme military command in Yaoundé is interested in knowing why suicide ranks as the No. 1 cause of troop deaths in Southern Cameroons. However, our source at the defense headquarters pointed out to our chief intelligence reporter Rita Akana that the Francophone army soldiers fighting Ambazonia Restoration Forces have mental illnesses, post-traumatic stress and multiple combat deployments ranging from the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram in the Far North Region and the French back rebels in the Central African Republic.

The nature of the fight against Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces has also increased Cameroon military combat fatalities. Though direct exchange of artillery fire between Cameroon government army soldiers and Ambazonia fighters are uncommon, the Amba fighters are now utilizing the hit and run tactics.

By Isong Asu

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Atanga Nji Boys planning new attacks in Bamenda

30, December 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Atanga Nji Boys planning new attacks in Bamenda 0

Southern Cameroons Interim Government has accused the pro French Cameroun militia group sponsored by Minister Paul Atanga Nji of plotting imminent attacks against Ambazonian citizens residing in Bamenda.

Vice President Dabney Yerima announced in a statement to Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces in Ground Zero on Tuesday that Atanga Nji Boys backed by some elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion deployed to the Northern Zone by the French Cameroun dictator, were planning to launch attacks against Southern Cameroons civilians in the coming days.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader observed that Yaoundé intends to blame the attacks on Ambazonia Restoration Forces and to use the attacks and remilitarize Buea, Mutengene, Tiko, Limbe in order to guarantee security for the African Nations Football Championship (CHAN) initially scheduled to have taken place in April 2020 but was postponed to early 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic and it is now set to run from January 16 to February 7 2021.

Dabney Yerima also pointed out to the fighters that the Interim Government has recently developed a plan that will be implemented in 2021 to protect every Southern Cameroons County.

Yerima added that self defense actions against the French Cameroun enemy will no longer be made public and that order of operations will remain secret.

By Fon Lawrence

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