A military court sitting in the Cameroonian capital Yaoundé will begin hearing a case involving seven soldiers who killed two women and their children in 2018.

Hearing is scheduled to start in January 20. Authorities have disclosed that the hearing will not be open to the public.

A video of the killing was released and subsequently went viral on social media forcing the government to constitute a probe after having initially rejecting it as “fake news.”

The BBC Africa Eye’s in an investigative piece that dissected the gruesome killing of two women and their babies by security forces deployed in the fight against Boko Haram insurgents.

The piece employed technology – satellite imagery, available news footage and matched it with the video of the shooting that drew widespread condemnation when it surfaced on social media.

The BBC work tracked when it possibly happened – dating as far back as 2015 and identified two of the soldiers involved.

The other gruesome killing was also shot in the same region and involved soldiers opening fire on a dozen young men who were lying prostrate.

A lawyer defending the seven soldiers, Sylvestre Mbeng, said he believes the trial has been made private because the authorities fear there could be damaging revelations.

Human Rights group Amnesty International has called for justice for the women and their children. The United States government openly slammed the incident and asked that a through probe be held.

Source: Africa News

Experts from central Africa met in Cameroon’s commercial capital Douala on Monday to work out a regional plan to combat poaching.

“Illegal wildlife crime continues to pose serious threats to wildlife populations. The forest elephant is especially in danger in Central Africa,” Cameroon’s Minister of Forestry and Wildlife Jules Doret Ndongo told reporters. “We want to fight against the growing trend of poaching, especially trans-boundary poaching and insecurity in protected areas.”

Ndongo said the meeting will review progress made in anti-poaching in the 10 member countries of the Central African Forest Commission.

The regional bloc is intensifying measures to enforce field wildlife crime units and set policies at the national and regional levels.

Central Africa owns the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest rainforest with almost 2 million square kilometers of humid forest.

According to World Wide Fund for Nature, Central Africa has experienced a 62-percent decline in the number of forest elephants between 2002 and 2011 due to commercial poaching, and it has been deteriorating over the years with cumulative losses of up to 90 percent in some landscapes in the region between 2011 and 2015.

Source: Xinhuanet

Separatist fighters in western Cameroon have abducted at least 40 candidates for parliament and local councils, in an effort to derail elections set for February. The government is promising to free the hostages and protect candidates and election officials for what it says must be successful polls.

In an audio shared by separatist fighters, Samuel Nforba, a candidate for the February 9, 2020 local council election, says he is being punished by separatists for defying their warning that no one should vote or be a candidate in the joint local council and parliamentary elections.

Among those listening to the audio is 51-year-old teacher Wilson Bate. He says the separatists should free innocent Cameroonians who simply want to carry out their civic duties.

“It’s embarrassing. I feel very bad that politicians should be kidnapped for simply wanting to perform their fundamental rights,” he said. “Government should do all what it can to make sure that there is a safe ground for all political events, make sure that they provide the necessary security for these upcoming elections.”

Separatists have been fighting since 2017 to detach English-speaking Northwest and Southwest Cameroon from the rest of the country and its French-speaking majority.

Cameroon’s government declared the regions were peaceful enough to hold the elections; but, last week, nearly 40 people running for council seats were abducted in the Northwest town of Jakiri.

Another three were kidnapped in the Northwest town of Bamenda for being in possession of voter cards.

Prince Ngwese Ekosso, chairman of the opposition United Socialist Democratic Party, says conditions are not peaceful enough to hold the ballot.

“There is need for the resolution of the conflict before we can be able to venture into elections in Cameroon,” he said. “The country is going through one of the worst crises and the separatists have made their point the tension is going to continue.”

Paul Atanga Nji, Cameroon’s minister of territorial administration, says the government is making efforts to free the hostages — and maintains the elections must take place as planned.

“In the Northwest and Southwest, the head of state [President Paul Biya] has given firm instructions to the minister of territorial administration, to the minister in charge of defense, that we have to do everything that it takes for this elections to hold properly. It is just but normal that we will uplift the security network in those two regions before, during and after the process,” he said.

The abductions come at a time when Cameroon’s parliament is meeting to debate the so-called special status President Paul Biya ordered as a solution to the separatist crisis.

Some lawmakers say only the creation of federal states, one in the English-speaking regions and the other in the French-speaking areas, can stop the separatist war that has killed more than 3,000 people.

The separatists have rejected the proposed special status, saying they want nothing but an independent state.

Source: VOA