An attack by Boko Haram killed five Cameroonian soldiers and a civilian, according to a defense ministry statement on state radio Tuesday.

The attack took place on Monday night in the far north of the central African country near the border with Nigeria, where operations by the Islamist group have been on the rise, reported AFP.

Meanwhile, Reuters said the attack happened during a raid on the military outpost in the country’s far north, local authorities said on Tuesday, the second deadly raid in the area in the past week.

An army post in the village of Zigue was attacked at around 9 p.m. (20:00 GMT) on Monday, according to two officials who asked not to be identified.

The attack follows a raid that took place around 50 km (30 miles) north of Zigue on Saturday, which was claimed by Daesh. Eight soldiers were killed in that raid, according to the defense ministry.

Cameroon, alongside neighboring Nigeria and Chad, has been battling the Boko Haram militant group for years, but more recently has clashed with fighters who identify themselves as Daesh West African Province (DWAP).

In the aftermath of the death of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in May, DWAP has sought to absorb Boko Haram fighters and unify the groups which had hitherto fought one another for control of territory.

With AFP and Reuters

At least 10,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled into Chad from northern Cameroon this week after deadly clashes between herding and fishing communities, the UN said Sunday.

Twelve people were killed and dozens wounded in the violence, which erupted Tuesday in the Far North region, a tongue of land wedged between Nigeria to the west and Chad to the east.

“The pressing needs are for health services, shelter and food,” said Iris Blom, the United Nations refugee agency’s deputy director in Chad.

She said 85 percent of the refugees who fled to Oundouma, south of the Chadian capital N’Djamena, were women and children.

The fighting in Cameroon began when Muslims built dams to divert water to help them catch fish, in a location where ethnic Arab Choa herders also take their cattle for watering, according to regional governor Midjiyawa Bakari.

Clashes between ethnic groups are rare in Cameroon but frequent in Chad and Nigeria, particularly between sedentary farmers and semi-nomadic herders.

In Chad, the local governor said authorities were moving to ensure the conflict does not spill across the border from Cameroon.

Chari-Baguirmi Governor Gayang Souare said some of the refugees were placed with families, while others were lodged in schools and churches.

Cameroon’s Far North is also struggling with cross-border attacks by jihadists from northeastern Nigeria.

Source: AFP

The CPDM government will never run out of tricks provided those tricks help it to prove a point. They are currently concocting a plan that might expose the country’s ailing president, Paul Biya, to a massive risk.

The Yaoundé government has decided to terminate Mr. Biya’s long health visit to Geneva to prove that he is up to the task so that he can avoid the political embarrassment that may play out sometime next week.

Mr. Biya will no longer be the country’s president if he overstays the 45 days stipulated by the country’s constitution.

He has been out of the country for almost 40 days and the political opposition is already preparing a motion which will be submitted to the Parliament and Senate sometime next week which might result in the declaration of a vacancy due to poor health or insanity.

The move to take him to Yaoundé goes against the wise counsel of Swiss medical experts who hold that the long trip back home could be a death sentence to the 89-year-old Biya who has lost a lot of weight and has not been eating properly for days

A source in Geneva has informed the Cameroon Concord News Group’s correspondent in Geneva that Mr. Biya is a shadow of his former self and the long trip back home could end up being a finisher if proper measures are not taking during the flight.

According to the source, which elected anonymity, the Yaoundé government is taking a massive risk to transport a breathing bag of bones back home. The odds are stacked up against the desperately ill Biya.

“We are really watching the meaningless drama that is unfolding right in front of own eyes. Mr. Biya should be resting in a well equipped medical facility that should guarantee him good health care instead of heading home to prove that he can rule the country,” the source said.

“The best decision will be for him to honorably resign and hand over to someone who can hold the country together. Mr. Biya is sick. He is losing his mind. He is not coherent when he talks. He is frail and may not survive the fatigue that comes after a long flight. He needs to know that at his age, his health is more important than anything else,” the source added.

“The country’s ruling party is playing Russian roulette with Mr. Biya’s life and it is indeed unfortunate that his wife is playing along with those politicians who are doing all they can to protect their own parochial interests,” the source said.

“When you take a very close look at the man, you can figure out that he is really sick. He seems to be losing his mind and it is obvious that besides his debilitating heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, he is also suffering from dementia or Alzheimers. This is too much for an 89-year-old man to handle, but the pressure from Yaoundé to ensure that he returns to Cameroon, makes it hard for him to respond positively to treatment,” the source stressed.

Currently, there are police officers and soldiers in downtown Yaoundé, a sign that Mr. Biya might be returning, but nobody is really sure,  especially as his multiple diseases are determined to take him out of existence. The diseases know they are dealing with a tough cookie and they understand that his exit must be gradual and painful for him to regret the pain he has inflicted on Cameroonians.

Though there are police officers all over the capital, Yaoundé, many people still hold it is a gimmick orchestrated by the crime syndicate ruling the country to pull a fast one on the gullible people of Cameroon.

Pictures of Mr. Biya and his family returning to Cameroon will not be televised because of how he currently looks. He is frail and out of steam and is incapable of walking without help, a source in Geneva said.

The decision to bring him home is purely political, especially as he is expected to virtually preside over a CEMAC Heads of State Conference on Wednesday, August 18, 2021. It is clear that a recorded speech will be delivered while the Prime Minister will continue to represent the ailing president in other events during the conference that will be held via video.

Cameroonians are waiting to see their president who has been hastily patched together by Swiss experts, but they know that they might not be seeing him soon in public because of his failing health.

They know his collaborators are just seeking to demonstrate that he is doing well and to avoid the declaration of a vacancy in the country.

Even if Mr. Biya heads to Cameroon today, he will be returning to Switzerland in a few days to continue with his treatment. The trip to Cameroon is simply to politically protect him and his cohorts. It is not in any way a sign that he is healthy and can effectively rule Cameroon.

Cameroonians must continue to hold that dark clouds are really gathering over their country. Biya will surely leave, but he wants to leave, leaving behind chaos that will set the country back by a century. That is what is disturbing, a source in Yaoundé said.

For now, Cameroonians have taken the wait-and-see posture. They know their government. It is a government that lies through its teeth. The government has lost credibility and the current drama about Mr. Biya’s health is one more reason for them to understand that they should always take any story from their government with a pinch of salt.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

After three days of detention at the Littoral Gendarmerie Legion, the influential 54-year-old entrepreneur Rebecca Enonchong was released late Friday afternoon, August 13, 2021.

The renowned Tech entrepreneur made the news official herself through a tweet.

“I am free!!! All charges dropped! We can remove the hashtag #FreeRebecca. I am extremely grateful to all of you for believing in me and supporting me,” she shared on this social network the moment she breathed the air of freedom.

A rather happy ending for Rebecca Enonchong, after three days of detention at the Legion of Gendarmerie of the Littoral, for “contempt of court”, in a case related to a battle of succession deep within the Enonchong family.

The detention of one of the 50 most influential women in Africa prompted negative reactions around the globe and a wave of protests from civil society actors, politicians, artists, and personalities of the diplomatic community.

On Friday, August 13, 2021, the Ambassador of the European Union to Cameroon, Philippe Van Damme, raised a finger against her arrest. Another prominent world leader who condemned the Biya Francophone regime was Tibor Nagy, the former U.S. Undersecretary for African Affairs. Hon. Tibor Nagy compared the regime of Paul Biya to that of Putin, which he considers the most authoritarian in the world.

By Fon Lawrence

Southern Cameroons Self Defense groups targeted by the Cameroon government army say the restrictive deployment measures now being enforced by the French Cameroun military leadership show that their hit and run strategy poses a challenge to the occupational forces, stressing that the opening of numerous military barracks in Southern Cameroons will fail to weaken their resolve to protect the homeland and restore Ambazonian sovereignty.

An audio message aired late yesterday by fighters in both Kupe Muanenguba and Ndian which are both regiments of the popular Ambazonia Restoration Forces said on Tuesday that they would remain impervious to the French Cameroun military and the so-called Atanga Nji Boys.

A week earlier, the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration announced that it had rehabilitated Southern Cameroons fighters in Buea and Bamenda. But Francis Fai Yengo the so-called director of the DDR centers created by the Biya regime for former fighters is yet to comment on the current situation in Southern Cameroons.

The Amba fighters described the war in Southern Cameroons as a battle between right and wrong saying Southern Cameroonians do not expect anything from the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé.

“Biya and his French Cameroun gang want a poor Southern Cameroons where the youths are jobless” the fighters said.

By Rita Akana