29, March 2020

Biya regime arrests prostitutes offering sex at virus isolation centres ⁰

Authorities in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, have arrested prostitutes who have been visiting coronavirus isolation centres in some hotels and offering their services.

The prostitutes, who earn at least $30 a night, have been approaching travellers from Europe despite the risk of contracting the disease and spreading it.

Mr Jean Claude Tsila, the capital’s administrative officer, reported the arrests to state broadcaster Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) on Friday.

Mr Tsila did not give the number of those arrested but reliable sources close to his office said they were at least 50.

“We were reliably informed that some persons confined to some hotels in Yaounde due to the coronavirus pandemic were receiving prostitutes inside their rooms,” the administrative officer said.

Source: Daily Nation

29, March 2020

COVID-19: Cameroon’s confirmed cases rise to 113 ⁰

Cameroon reported on Sunday 14 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 113, Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie tweeted on Sunday morning.

“The majority of positive cases are people from countries at risk who hide in families”, he added.

On Friday, Manaouda tweeted that an “active and early case finding by generalized testing” has become part of Cameroon’s new response strategy to COVID-19. The country had 92 cases on Friday.

To ensure a generalized testing, Cameroon government invites people who entered the country since March 10 to contact the health authorities so as to be tested for novel coronavirus. A door-to-door search campaign will also be organized from April 2 to 7 in Douala, the country’s most populous city.

Source: Xinhuanet

29, March 2020

Manu Dibango and Cameroon political hostility: No credible public statement from President Paul Biya, or from the Ministry of Culture ⁰

African jazz has lost another of its best-known icons.

Emmanuel N’Djoké Dibango, popularly known as Manu Dibango, was, like Hugh Masekela who died last year, a global star of Afro-jazz and funk.

The saxophonist Dibango leaves a huge legacy spanning more than 60 years of musical production that will continue to echo in global music. His brand of Afro-jazz drew enormously from makossa, a genre of popular music invented in the 1950s in Cameroon’s major economic and cultural centre, Douala. The music blended Afro-Cuban rumba and local musical forms such as assiko and ambasse bey with other styles such as the Congolese soukous.

Tellingly, one of Dibango’s most successful albums is titled Soul Makossa (1972), with a title song that has been repeatedly sampled (though most often unacknowledged) by stars ranging from Michael Jackson to Rihanna, Kanye West and A Tribe Called Quest. This one track alone has been referenced by so many globally famed artists that it has infused the pop culture zeitgeist from dance floors to catwalks at various times over the decades.

Dibango’s work has resonated with so many of his peers and audience because of its eclectic and ecumenical character. The richness of its multiple sources of inspirations across a wide range of traditions was only enhanced by Dibango’s deft ability to combine and recompose them into new symphonies and rhythms.

In an interview in 2018 for Quincy Jones’ Qwest TV, he spoke about his life and musical journey, moving between jazz, rumba, funk, and reggae, crossing paths with Sidney Bechet, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Bob Marley and Mohamed Ali along the way.

In Africa, Dibango’s appeal as an artist stemmed not only from his great talent, but also his simple ability to work with artists across a wide range of generations and backgrounds to advance African music and social causes on the continent. He famously led a humanitarian effort to raise money for the fight against famine in Ethiopia through a number of initiatives, including a charity record, Tam-Tam for Ethiopia (Drum for Ethiopia) in 1985.

Resilience

Dibango was an avid collaborator in African musical production, working with contemporaries like Cameroon’s Francis Bebey, the DRC’s Joseph Kabasele, Nigeria’s Fela Kuti and South Africa’s Masekela. He also produced music with notable figures among the younger generation like the DRC’s Papa Wemba, Mali’s Salif Keita and Senegal’s Youssou N’dour.

Personally, I have been drawn to how Dibango’s brand of music speaks to the political aesthetics of everyday life in authoritarian settings, much like Kuti’s. This includes a resilient capacity to laugh and be joyful, a determined refusal to capitulate to violent oppression. This is what Kuti described as “suffering and smiling”.

Dibango’s music was not directly about political commentary in its lyrics, except for a few songs like Ah! Freak Sans Fric (Africa Without Money). The song bemoaned a continent impoverished despite its natural wealth. But in its poetry of everyday life on the continent, Dibango’s music addressed the aesthetic, ethical, political, economic, material and even the psychological states of Africa in the wake of the multiple crises that people have had to live through.

Political hostility

Born in 1933, Dibango left Cameroon in his teens to undertake high school studies in Paris. From this moment on, his life as a world journeyman and musical joy maker began. He aptly defined himself as a “Negropolitan”, an African of the world.

He never really returned to Cameroon. His occasional efforts to initiate cultural projects to promote music in the country were frequently frustrated by the political establishment.

As Francis Nyamnjoh and Jude Fokwang, two notable Cameroonian anthropologists, wrote in their seminal study of Cameroonian music and the repressive order in the country, Manu Dibango’s genre of makossa brought world fame to Cameroon’s popular music,but his efforts to win recognition for music as art and musicians as artists met with repeated frustrations by politicians.

Manu Dibango performing in the musical production Femme Noir with Angelique Kidjo, the star from Benin. Jean Marc Zaorski/Gamma Rapho/Getty Image

There was therefore no love lost between the musician and the authorities in the country of his birth. No surprise, then, that there was no credible public statement from either the president of Cameroon, Paul Biya, or from the country’s Ministry of Culture in the days after the announcement of the death of this cultural icon.

No leading national authority had called for the public to honour Manu Dibango’s memory and to recognise his cultural contributions to uplifting the national spirit of joy and resilience in the face of everyday hardships that Cameroonians endure.

This stands in stark contrast to the global outpouring of grief and celebration of this cultural genius at the news of his demise. Dibango was an object of “Cameroonian and African pride”, as N’dour puts it.

Dibango gave his life’s work to the entire continent of Africa and the rest of the world, producing soul-reaching musical sensations with mind-boggling energy in his music. It is perhaps only just that it is the entire continent and the rest of the world that have been quick to sense his demise as our collective loss.

Dibango passed away in Paris after contracting COVID-19. He was 86 years old.

Culled from The Conversation

29, March 2020

Cameroonian Muslims Defy Coronavirus Prayer Restrictions ⁰

Muslims in Cameroon have defied and are protesting government restrictions on prayer attendance at mosques, imposed to reduce the spread of COVID-19, which has so far been confirmed in 92 people in less than a month.

The Muslims say the government order defies God’s teachings. Hundreds of Muslim faithful attended their Friday worship sessions in mosques throughout Cameroon despite the government order for prayers to be said at home and for numbers in worship houses to be limited.

As a sign of protest, they sat in front of mosques for 20 minutes.

The government said most of those defying the order were on the central African state’s northern border with Nigeria. Student Koulanya Abo, 23, said he went to the mosque in the town of Maroua in the Far North region of Cameroon to pray for Allah to rid the world of the disease.

“This is a time people have to go to the mosque and pray ceaselessly. Anything out of that will not be tolerated by Allah, because this is a period where people are facing a lot of difficulties due to the outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19,” Abo said.

Terrorist area

Cameroon’s Far North region has been an epicenter of Boko Haram terrorist attacks for 10 years. The Nigerian Islamist militants want to create an Islamist caliphate. They have not made a statement on their stand on COVID-19.

However, Bouba Bakary, the traditional leader and Muslim spiritual guide of Maroua, said that when he noticed resistance to the government order, he directed clerics under him to keep an eye on extremists.

He said he told the 1,200 imams and clerics under his authority that the measures taken by the government were aimed at saving their lives and protecting their communities from a deadly disease that has killed thousands of people all over the world. He said there was a surprising amount of resistance, and he wanted the government to take further measures that would force the faithful to obey the instructions and at the same time maintain peace.

Bakary said he was also asking the government to use such local languages as Fulfulde and Haoussa to inform both clerics and the faithful who may not understand French that COVID-19 kills, and that the decision that people should stop crowding into mosques was made to save their lives.

Cameroonian Minister of Youth Affairs and Civic Education Monouna Foutsou said the situation was very worrying. He has sent youths not only to the regions where there is resistance but all over Cameroon to inform civilians that they should abide by the measures or they will be punished.

Youths sent to spread word

He said President Paul Biya had instructed him to advise Cameroonians to be socially responsible, and he has dispatched youths to towns and villages with loudspeakers, flyers and banners to try to persuade the population to adhere to the lifesaving measures directed by the government. He said the government would not spare anyone who exhibited irresponsibility after the two-day education phase.

A crisis meeting was held at the Defense Ministry on Friday, where it was decided that the military would be deployed to areas where there is resistance.

The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Cameroon on February 6. Health officials said Saturday that the number of confirmed cases had increased to 92. Two people have died.

In an effort to stop the spread of the virus, Cameroon on March 18 closed its borders and suspended issuance of visas into the country until further notice. The central African state also closed all schools and asked Christians and Muslims to limit worship attendance and pray at home.

Source: VOA

29, March 2020

Stabilizing Cameroon requires a sustained solution for democracy, rights, and governance ⁰

As regional and international partners focus on countering Boko Haram in West Africa’s Lake Chad Region, another crisis is playing out in southern Cameroon, where the armed conflict between the government and separatists has killed more than 3,000 and displaced close to 600,000. After nearly two years of violence, the two sides are at a stalemate, even with sustained Swiss-led efforts to broker peace. Despite stalled progress, there are further steps that regional governments, France, and the United States can take now to facilitate a peaceful transition and post-conflict recovery.

To maximize the probability of success, however, these disparate actions must be guided by a political strategy for stabilizing southern Cameroon. The United States can play a lead role in defining this strategy and supporting the lead actors to implement it.

Three core pillars, in particular, should comprise the strategy in order to resolve the crisis: conflict prevention and mitigation to protect civilians, investigate extra-judicial killings, and help stabilize conflict-affected areas; preparation for potential dialogue between the government and separatists; and, pending those talks, a framework for an inclusive political transition that respects core tenets of democracy and governance.

Central to all of these must be a focus on democracy and governance to address the democratic deficits underlying the broader crisis. The U.S. government should make strategic short-term investments to increase citizen participation in local governance, while supporting long-term stabilization and redress of political and security grievances. Below, we outline these democratic deficits and ways to address them.

HISTORIC ROOTS OF A DEMOCRATIC CRISIS

The ongoing crisis began in 2017 when Anglophone teachers and lawyers in the northwest and southwest regions mobilized protests in opposition to perceived discrimination by the Francophone government in Yaoundé. The government crackdown on protesters, and exacerbation of long-standing grievances, led aggrieved communities to create a separatist movement and declare independence for “Ambazonia.” Parliamentary and municipal elections were held February 9 amid an opposition boycott, low voter turnout fueled by apathy and separatist intimidation, and the prospect of violence from Boko Haram. President Paul Biya’s ruling party won in a landslide. The contests did little to quell grievances in conflict-affected areas, which are rooted in long-standing historical divides.

Anglophone Cameroonians often articulate their grievances through the lens of World War I. The 1919 partition of the former German colony Kamerun into British and French Cameroons created two separate polities with distinct political hierarchies and governance systems. Independence in 1961 brought British Southern Cameroonians a narrow choice through a plebiscite: assimilation into either French Cameroon or neighboring Nigeria, but not independence in their own right. Despite widespread discontentment during the vote, Southern Cameroonians chose to join French Cameroon as part of a federation between the two states.

After independence, Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, employed an assimilation policy to administratively and linguistically merge the Southern Cameroons with Francophone Cameroon in order to maintain access to its natural resources. President Ahidjo completed the assimilation process in 1972 with a unilateral referendum that replaced the federal state with a unitary state and increased executive power. Southern Cameroons lost its autonomous status and became the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region of the Republic of Cameroon. The democratic closing in the early 1990s further exacerbated Anglophone Cameroon’s political marginalization: The resulting electoral constraints combined with President Paul Biya’s increasingly autocratic leadership created an uneven playing field for Anglophone politicians to compete in national elections.

WHY DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS, AND GOVERNANCE ARE CENTRAL TO A STABLE AND INCLUSIVE TRANSITION

Grievances thus persist because the deep roots of the Anglophone crisis lie in Cameroon’s outstanding democratic deficits. Any political strategy to stabilize the country’s conflict-affected regions must account for these deficits and include tactics to address them.

First, Anglophone Cameroonians remember the disenfranchisement of two separate referenda, with people perceiving the results to have inaccurately represented popular political preferences. This legacy casts immediate suspicion on any deal forged between Anglophone leaders, separatists, and the Cameroonian government in Yaoundé. Ahead of any peace negotiations, domestic and international stakeholders must adopt a citizen-centric approach to drafting a settlement to end the crisis. Community consultations with Anglophone citizens living in and outside the country remain essential for establishing citizen buy-in and restoring the region’s trust in the political process. Any future national dialogue processes or peace negotiations should involve groups of Anglophone citizens displaced internally and internationally by the crisis as advisory bodies to the negotiations.

The second democratic deficit is Cameroon’s persistent centralization of power. While Cameroon decentralized through a 1996 amendment to the constitution and a 2004 Orientation of Decentralization Law, administrative bottlenecks and political interference prevent the country’s 360 municipal councils from carrying out their responsibility to lead development in areas such as healthcare, education, and social welfare. Just five years ago, Cameroon’s ministries devolved operations to the municipal level, but ministers regularly impose conditions on the use of funds. Persistent blockages to creating an autonomous, functional infrastructure for subnational governance continue to exacerbate present grievances and hinder progress toward a government structure that maintains Cameroon’s territorial integrity while vastly increasing its responsiveness to citizen needs.

The international community needs to make targeted investments to improve the collaboration between local elected officials and civil society organizations. Technical support from other constitutionally devolved African nations like Kenya can help Cameroon creatively troubleshoot political and bureaucratic blockages in the decentralization process. This approach needs to be grounded in improving and expanding the existing efforts of committed nonpartisan civil society organizations to hold municipal councils accountable. In the long run, the international community needs to support Cameroonian political leaders, civil society members, and citizens develop and execute a plan for the country’s federalization that is embedded in a negotiated settlement.

The third democratic deficit is the closed space in which civil society operates. Under President Biya, Cameroon has been a closed space for civil society and political activists challenging the government’s authority. Rights-based organizations in Cameroon are routinely persecuted for exercising their oversight role and exposing human rights violations committed by the government. The government, however, allows civil society organizations to work on issues that are not considered a threat to its control, such as women’s and children’s rights and service delivery. Though, due to the closed political space, many organizations in Cameroon, especially those located outside of the main city centers, cannot readily access technical assistance or resources that would strengthen their engagement with the government and contribute to policy reforms on low-risk issues.

In the midst of the crisis, local civil society organizations — particularly those led by women — and community leaders like religious authorities and traditional chiefs are filling service delivery vacuums left by ineffective governance. Not only do these civil society leaders provide socioeconomic relief to Anglophones in the form of locally-sourced humanitarian assistance and psychosocial support to bereaved citizens, but they also act as back-channel negotiators to incentivize separatist family and friends to consider non-violent approaches to address their grievances. The international community should continue to voice support for civil society leaders on the front lines of the crisis and apply public pressure to the Cameroonian government should they continue to repress these actors. Since the Cameroonian government applies less pressure to apolitical social welfare organizations, international partners should also increase assistance activities to civil society leaders working directly with internally-displaced Cameroonians to increase their service coverage and build their legitimacy as neutral humanitarian actors.

THE WAY AHEAD

Cameroon’s long-term stabilization starts now. While a negotiated settlement between the Cameroonian government and the armed Anglophone groups is the only pathway for sustainable peace, the country’s local governance infrastructure — particularly its municipal councils — requires immediate technical and financial support to capably carry out its decentralized functions and serve the needs of a population in crisis. Social welfare-focused civil society organizations and community leaders are crucial neutral actors whose contributions to humanitarian assistance and peace efforts will only increase once negotiations progress. In the aftermath of a deal, these local governments structures and civil society leaders will provide crucial support for the resettlement of displaced populations, the reintegration of former combatants, and the settlement of wartime grievances. The international community should support decentralized local government structures and civil society leaders now to provide immediate stabilization assistance and to increase the chances of societal recovery after the parties reach an agreement.

Culled from Brookings.edu

29, March 2020

COVID 19: Father Maurice Agbaw-Ebai says Jesus will raise new life from the present time, ushering a new reality in human history ⁰

The Believer and Lazarus of Bethany

“Master, the one you love is ill” (John 11:3)

Dear Holy People of God of Ste Anne’s Parish Family,

Good is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good!

The Gospel of this Sunday presents us with the resuscitation of Lazarus, which is very different from the resurrection of Jesus. The former, Lazarus, dies again, as is evident from the text itself: “Meanwhile a large number of Jews heard that he (Jesus) was there and came not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. Then the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus as well, since it was on his account that many of the Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus” (John 12: 9-11).

With resuscitation, Lazarus returns to biological life, subjected once more to the laws of Aristotelian Categories or Newtonian physics, that is, the operations of space and time. He could once again feel tired, hungry and thirsty. Lazarus, brought back to life by Jesus, was still subjected to all that characterizes the human condition. But with the resurrection, there is the entry into the power of God, into the being of God, a power and being that is beyond space and life, beyond the laws of physics. The resurrection is the definitive otherness. There is a new form of existence, what Paul struggles to explain, “we teach what scripture calls: the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

From the perspective of the inner logic of the Hebrew Bible otherwise known as the Old Testament, the “scandal” of the resurrection of Jesus resides in the fact that history continued, after Easter Sunday. Judaism, at least in the form that developed and as witnessed to by prophets such as Ezekiel, the book of the Maccabees and the book of Daniel, gradually arrived at the understanding of a resurrection from the dead. But this was understood to mark the end of history, that is, the end of time and space, wherein history will enter into the definitive reality of God, so that God will become all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). In other words, history was not supposed to continue after Easter Sunday. There was therefore, a sense of a definitive end-of-timeness, an eschaton, that marked the understanding of resurrection faith in Judaism. Martha gives voice to this eschatological (end-of-time) understanding of the Jewish understanding of resurrection in this Sunday’s gospel, when she says to Jesus: “I know he (Lazarus) will rise again at the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). And herein lies the scandal of the resuscitation of Lazarus, because, correctly understood as St John the Evangelist does, it marks the definitive pointer to the resurrection of Jesus. And yet, as it was with Lazarus and as will be seen with the resurrection, history, understood as the measurement of time, does not come to an end.

In the theology of the Gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus by Jesus is the definitive sign pointing to the Lord’s passion, death and eventual resurrection. St John even gives us certain “passion details” around the Lazarus narrative: “(…) From that day they were determined to kill him (Jesus) (John 11:53); “Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom he had raised from the dead” (Jon 12:1). The cloud of the darkness of death was clearly in the horizon, with the sign of the raising of Lazarus.

Dear Holy People of God, like the Blind Man of Last Sunday’s Gospel, Lazarus represents all of humanity that is dead, and that Jesus seeks to bring back to life, not just biological life, that is, life in this world, but eternal life, that is, life with God. During these days in which our beloved city of Salem and the wider world is suffocating under the pandemic of the COVID 19, the cry of Martha and Mary to Jesus is ours, in a very real, pragmatic and existential sense: “Master, the one you love is ill” (John 11:3). The concrete situation of the world of COVID 19 brings these words to a shocking realism: Our world is literally “ill.” But Bethany teaches us that there will be a raising to new life. Lazarus of Bethany reminds us that the power of God will break into the world of COVID 19, and that the power of God is stronger than death. Bethany teaches us that even if we feel that the Lord is delaying in coming with his power, that the Lord is slow in responding to our cry, as Martha and Mary felt – “Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died (…) (John 11:21); “Mary went to Jesus, and as soon as she saw him she threw herself at his feet, saying, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32); “Martha said to him, “Lord, by now he will smell; this is the fourth day” (John 11:39); – the Lord’s belatedness, the Lord’s “four days” of lateness in coming, eventually turns out to be just on time, for as Augustine points out in book XI of the Confessions, time, that is, past (memory), present (sight) and future (expectation), are all present, with the Lord: the past is the present of the things past; the present is the present of things present, and the future is the present of things future. “All time belongs to Christ,” as we profess on Easter Night in the ceremony of the lighting of the Easter Candle. Hence, let us remember that even the present time is in the hands of the Lord, and that the Lord will raise new life from the present time of COVID 19, ushering a new reality in human history which we as yet cannot fathom but which we can already see with the eyes of faith, that faith of Martha and Mary that we encounter in today’s gospel.

In Martha and Mary, the believer and the Church finds what we can and must do, besides the reasonable precautionary measures of body hygiene and social distancing, namely, to cry to the Lord in prayer: “Master, the world you so love (John 3:16), is ill” (John 11:3). We too cry out, “Master, our world needs to be raised from death. Jesus, do not let us be without you in the Sacraments for too long. Jesus, do not delay in coming into the world of the here and now, and of putting an end to this pandemic. Help all our medical personnel who are on the frontline of this battle. Help the efforts of all researching for cures and vaccines. Grant the joy of your presence to the dead and your consolation to the living. Grant serenity to our anxious hearts. And May we feel the maternal closeness of your Mother, Mary, Help and Comforter of the Afflicted,” now and always, Amen. My Holy Mass this Sunday will be offered for all the families of our Ste Anne’s parish family. May the Lord bless you and be close to you. May the Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord fill you with is peace

By Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

Sainte Anne Parish, Boston

28, March 2020

Italy coronavirus death toll tops 10,000 ⁰

The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has surged by 889 to top 10,000, the Civil Protection Agency said on Saturday, the second highest daily tally since the epidemic emerged on February 21.

The toll in Italy, which has suffered more deaths than any other country, now stands at 10,023. An additional 5,974 infections brought to 92,472 the number of people who have officially tested positive for COVID-19 in Italy since the crisis began last month.

The first Western country to introduce severe restrictions on movement after uncovering the outbreak five weeks ago, Italy has since increasingly tightened them. It has banned all non-essential activities until April 3.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has urged the European Union to launch a “recovery bond” to help fund the response to the coronavirus outbreak, saying failure to tackle the emergency would be a “tragic mistake” for the bloc.

In an interview with Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore on Saturday, Conte said a common debt instrument was needed to spearhead a European recovery and reinvestment plan to support the economy of the whole area.

Education Minister Lucia Azzolina has already said the closure of schools and universities, which began on March 5, would have to be extended past April 3.

That’s while Italy’s minister for the country’s economically disadvantaged southern regions expressed concerns about potential social tensions and civil unrest in poorer areas if, as expected, the epidemic moves south.

“I am afraid that the worries that are affecting large sections of the population over health, income and the future, with the continuation of the crisis, will turn into anger and hatred,” Minister Giuseppe Provenzano told La Repubblica newspaper on Saturday.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

28, March 2020

Boko Haram attacks in northern Cameroon continue unabated ⁰

While the attention of the authorities and the international community has shifted to the Anglophone Cameroon, attacks perpretrated by Boko Haram have resumed in the far north of the country.

As dawn broke, Akhada set to work.

Huddled on a small chair, he has been sorting the millet grains from the sack placed near him for two weeks. One by one, he eliminates those that are burnt. This is all he has been able to save from his last harvest since a fire ravaged his house on 13 February.

On that day, members of the Boko Haram jihadist group burst into his village of Kilda, a town not far from Koza in the far north region. Houses, crops, and livestock were consumed by the fury of the flames.

Villagers were murdered.

“They killed my cousin right in front of me,” he said. He was only passing through the village to visit the family. With his two wives and two children, Akhada took refuge in Ldamtsai, on the outskirts of Mokolo, the capital of Mayo-Tsanaga department. They occupy a 9 m2 room.

Resurgence of violence

In recent months, hundreds of families living in villages near the border with Nigeria have been forced to flee their homes due to renewed violence from Boko Haram. Hidoua, Gochi, Mandaka, Tourou, Kolofata… The list of localities attacked since December 2019 continues to grow. On almost every occasion, arson, looting, kidnapping, and assassinations have been reported.Daily newsletter: join our 100 000 subscribers!Each day, get the essential: 5 things you need to know Sign up Also receive offers from The Africa ReportAlso receive offers from The Africa Report’s partners

On 15 February, Uzal, in Mayo-Moskota, was completely razed to the ground. “Boko Haram arrived that day at around 10 p.m. They stayed for four hours. They burned everything in their path, and when the defence forces arrived, there was nothing left to save,” said a relative of the region’s governor. According to an official report, three people died in the attack.

Every day there are new arrivals in the Mokolo IDP, but many prefer to settle temporarily in the mountains surrounding the town. “Some just want us to store their food in our attics to protect it from the weather and then leave. In the camps, life is even harder,” said Marguerite, the owner of the premises occupied by Akhada and her family.

It’s been a long time since the fight against Boko Haram became a national issue and was the subject of special attention from the international community.

The Far North is far from the decision-making centre

Since the end of 2016, the focus has been instead on the English-speaking crisis.

In the streets of Maroua, the capital of the Far North, life has resumed. Memories of curfews and tank patrols are told in the bars of the Domayo district, where beer and local music are consumed with abandon.

Remote areas

It often appears that the media is less inclined to carry news from this “front” and rather concentrate on the violence that plunges the northwest and southwest regions into mourning week after week.

The stakes, of course, are not the same. There is nothing in common between Boko Haram, which carries out regular but contained attacks in some remote areas, and the separatist demands of the “Ambazonians”.

Journalist Saliou Aminou explained that the remoteness of the north does not help.

“The Far North is far from the decision-making centre,” he said. “And its elites do not always carry the voice of the people as far as Yaoundé.’

“It’s clear that it’s no longer the great effervescence, as it was between 2013 and 2015,” confirmed Yannick Assongmo of the daily Le Jour.

At the time, not a day went by without a daily newspaper headline about the attacks by Boko Haram. But since then, the news has become more diverse. There has been the conflict in the English-speaking area, but also the post-electoral crisis which has focused attention.

Legislatve and municipal elections

“In fact, the question of the fight against Boko Haram was completely avoided during the debates organised in the run-up to the legislative and municipal elections last February,” said Assongmo.

No political party in the running has put it on its agenda or made any proposal to end the crisis. Opposition leader Maurice Kamto, one of the few to have publicly mentioned the resurgence of attacks, has denounced the silence surrounding him, choosing not to take part in the elections.

To justify his boycott, he said he regretted that President Paul Biya “did not consider that the resolution of the humanitarian tragedy caused by the war against Boko Haram was as important as the holding of the elections”.

On the side of the victims, the “passivity of the defence forces” is stressed — this is believed to be one of the reasons for Boko Haram’s return in force. Nico Seni, one of the survivors of the attack on Kolofata, claimed to have called in vain for help during the attack.

“The military told us that they had not received authorization to intervene!” he claimed.

“Last year, when Kilda was attacked, the army stayed with us,” said Akhada. “Boko Haram were afraid and didn’t come back. But this time the military didn’t come [to the village]. The attackers could come back at any moment, that’s why we left.”

Demobilization of soldiers

“When outlaws enter a locality, if the police don’t respond immediately, people will tend to leave the area,” admitted Roger Saffo, the secretary general of the governor’s office.

However, the intensity of the response deployed at the height of the crisis by the Cameroonian defence forces and their allies in the sub-region has substantially decreased.

Security specialist Édouard Épiphane Yogo speaks of the elimination of “certain military posts” in the villages and the “demobilization” of soldiers on the ground.

The Far North is also feeling the effects of the withdrawal of the Chadian military forces that were deployed in neighbouring Nigeria, some 1,200 soldiers, who finally returned home in early January.

Jihadists now have greater freedom to operate on both sides of the border.

Left to fend for themselves

In the absence of any real support from the authorities, the number of vigilance committees, which served as a bulwark against Boko Haram, has also decreased, and those that are still operational have become less effective. For example, in Mogode commune, the local self-defence group now has only about ten members, compared to more than 250 at the peak of the conflict.

To make matters worse, lack of maintenance, rains and mud have filled entire portions of the large trench built in 2017 by the army to block the advance of the jihadists. From now on, the inhabitants of the surrounding villages tell us, it is mainly used as a passageway by the attackers.

However, the Cameroonian authorities refuse to be alarmed.

“Our defence forces are doing a titanic job, and the task is not easy,” insisted Roger Saffo. “The proof: we have been engaged in this fight since 2014 and we haven’t lost one square centimetre of our territory.”

Bottom line: Like many displaced people, Akhada, for his part, hopes for a national surge and large-scale mobilization, as was the case in 2014.

“We don’t have the means to defend ourselves,” he said. “If nothing is done, they will massacre us all!”

Culled from The Africa Report

28, March 2020

Human Rights Watch says Cameroon should protect prison population from COVID-19 ⁰

This week Cameroon recorded its first death from COVID-19. 88 cases have now been confirmed across the country, although limited testing means the real number is likely higher.

The government recently took measures to curb the spread of the virus, including shutting schools, closing borders, banning mass gatherings, and encouraging people to follow hygiene rules.

But in Cameroon’s prisons, which are notably overcrowded, keeping social distance, practicing self-isolation, and taking basic measures such as hand washing are just not possible.

The central prison in the capital Yaoundé currently holds about 5,000 people – 5 times its capacity – the majority of whom are in pretrial detention. The last time I visited the prison was in 2016, and I was shocked by the dreadful conditions, including filthy latrines and hundreds of detainees crammed in the same small cell. The prison had one health center with only one doctor.

My contacts in Cameroon say nothing has changed. A Cameroonian lawyer who regularly visits it told Human Rights Watch this week: “In the event of the virus spreading inside the prison, no medical care will be possible. The prisoners are piled on top of each other; it’s impossible to keep any safe distance. This prison is a volcano ready to explode.”

Other prisons are no better. The prison in Maroua, in the Far North region, was built for 350 people but currently holds over 1,470, of whom some 70 percent are awaiting trial. The central prison in Buea, in the troubled South-West region, was built for 700 people, but currently holds over 2,000 – again with the majority in pretrial detention.

Cameroonian authorities are limiting prison visits and asking visitors to wash their hands. But lawyers and family members of detainees say it’s not enough.

Under international law, Cameroon has an obligation to ensure the health care of people in prison, and it cannot do that in this pandemic with such overcrowding. Authorities should release individuals whose pretrial detention is not absolutely justified on public safety grounds and put in place a system for considering early or supervised release for those most at risk, including older people and people with health conditions that makes the virus more dangerous for them, as well as those in custody for minor offenses. Anything less will risk the health – and the lives – of thousands of people.

Culled from Human Rights Watch

28, March 2020

Europe’s virus toll surges, world plunges into recession ⁰

Europe was reeling from a staggering surge in coronavirus deaths Saturday, still days or weeks from what experts desperately hope will be the epidemic’s peak.

Grim new tolls from Italy and Spain came as the IMF confirmed the world economy has plunged into a historic slump, and the US invoked wartime procurement powers.

More than 600,000 cases of the new coronavirus have been officially recorded around the world since the outbreak of the epidemic, according to an AFP tally.

Variations in testing regimes mean the true number is likely far higher still, and confirmed deaths are mounting.

Spain recorded 832 fatalities in 24 hours, bringing its toll to 5,690, second in the world only to Italy, which confirmed a one-day record of 969 on Friday.

Elsewhere, Iran announced 139 more deaths and India sealed off a dozen Punjab villages that had been visited by a guru now known to be infected and a possible “super-spreader”.

And, in South Africa, Johannesburg police resorted to rubber bullets to enforce social distancing on a crowd queueing for supplies outside a downtown supermarket during a national lockdown.

The United States now has the world’s highest single number of COVID-19 cases but per capita European nations are still the worst hit, with emergency services struggling to cope.

– Wuhan partially reopens –

However, two months of almost total isolation appear to have paid off in China’s Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, which was partially reopened.

Since January, residents have been forbidden to leave, with roadblocks installed and millions subjected to dramatic restrictions on their daily life.

But on Saturday people were allowed to enter the city, and most of the subway network restarted. Some shopping centres will open their doors next week.

The European Union economy has already been disrupted by border closures and stay-at-home orders, and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned that the bloc could lose it legitimacy.

“If Europe does not rise to this unprecedented challenge, the whole European structure loses its raison d’etre to the people,” he told the Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper.

Italy, backed by France and Spain, wants Europe to come up with a stronger financial response to the crisis, but Germany and the Netherlands are resisting calls to pool national debts.

Meanwhile, on Friday, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said massive spending will be needed to help developing nations, warning: “It is clear that we have entered a recession.”

In the US, which now has more than 104,000 COVID-19 patients, President Donald Trump invoked emergency powers Friday to force a private company to make medical equipment.

– Giant US stimulus package –

“Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives,” Trump said Friday, as he issued the order to auto giant General Motors.

With 60 percent of the country in lockdown, and infections skyrocketing, Trump also signed the largest stimulus package in US history, worth $2 trillion.

It came as Italy recorded almost 1,000 deaths from the virus on Friday — the worst one-day toll anywhere since the pandemic began.

One coronavirus sufferer, a cardiologist from Rome who has since recovered, recalled his hellish experience at a hospital in the capital.

“The treatment for the oxygen therapy is painful, looking for the radial artery is difficult. Desperate other patients were crying out, ‘enough, enough’,” he told AFP.

Infection rates in Italy are on a downward trend, but the head of the national health institute Silvio Brusaferro said it was not out of the woods yet, predicting “we could peak in the next few days”.

Spain has the world’s second-highest coronavirus death toll after Italy and the number of cases jumped to 72,248 on Saturday as the country moves to significantly increase testing.

Smaller Belgium and Luxembourg also saw a steep climb in deaths, with 353 recorded in the former on Saturday — up from 289 the day before — and 15 in the grand duchy, up from nine.

Europe has suffered the brunt of the coronavirus crisis in recent weeks, with millions across the continent on lockdown and the streets of Paris, Rome and Madrid eerily empty.

In Britain, the men leading the country’s fight against the coronavirus — Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Health Secretary Matt Hancock — have both tested positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, other countries across the world were bracing for the virus’s full impact, with AFP tallies showing more than 26,000 deaths globally.

The World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa warned the continent faced a “dramatic evolution” of the pandemic, as South Africa also began life under lockdown and reported its first virus death.

– Younger patients –

In the United States, known infections jumped past 104,000, the world’s highest figure, with 1,711 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In New York City, the US epicentre of the crisis, health workers battled a surging toll — including an increasing number of younger patients — while struggling with a severe shortage of protective equipment.

“Now it’s 50-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 30-year-olds,” said one respiratory therapist.

To ease the strain on virus-swamped emergency rooms in Los Angeles, a giant US naval hospital ship docked there to take patients with other conditions.

In New Orleans, famed for its jazz and nightlife, health experts believe the month-long Mardi Gras in February could be largely responsible for its severe outbreak.

“This is going to be the disaster that defines our generation,” said Collin Arnold, director of the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for New Orleans.

But as Europe and the United States struggle to contain the pandemic, aid groups have warned the death toll could be in the millions in low-income countries and war zones such as Syria and Yemen, where hygiene conditions are already dire and healthcare systems are in tatters.

Source: AFP