Thousands of women in Cameroon took to the streets on Wednesday, International Women’s Day, to protest the high cost of living. The government blames soaring food and energy prices on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Hundreds of Cameroonian women blow trumpets and whistles on the streets of the central African state’s capital Yaounde, shouting and decrying the high cost of living amid surging inflation.

The women say they want the government to help them cope with price increases.

Suzanne Menanga is coordinator of the Cameroon Female Consumers Union that organized the protest.

She says her group protested on International Women’s Day because more than 80% of Cameroon’s roughly 14 million women are either unemployed or earn very low wages that make it difficult to cope with the high costs.

She says a February 2023 minimum wage increase for private sector workers from about $60 to $68 and the 5.4% salary increase for government workers has not improved the living conditions of Cameroonians.

Menanga says food price inflation increased from 25% in 2022 to 40% in 2023, adding that it is difficult for families to purchase everyday items like bread, sugar, fish, salt, soap and vegetable oil, whose prices are up by between 18 and 45%.

The women say the minimum wage for private sector workers should be increased to at least $100. The government should increase the salaries of state workers by 20%, according to the women.

The government says protests took place in several towns including Bamenda, Bafoussm, Ngaoudere and Ebolowa on Wednesday.

Cameroon’s trade minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana says Russia’s war in Ukraine has led to an increase in the prices of basic commodities all over the world.

Atangana says Cameroon, like the World Bank and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), blames the current high inflation and slow economic growth in low- and middle-income countries that rely heavily on Ukraine and Russia for grains and plant oils on disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He says Cameroon is one among scores of low-income countries where high fertilizer prices have become an obstacle to food production. Atangana says Cameroon is lucky that it is not experiencing food shortages.

Atangana said civilians should learn to live with the price increases. He adds that living standards are affected all over Africa and may only be reduced when Russia stops its aggression in Ukraine.

Last year, the Cameroonian government said President Paul Biya ordered an immediate disbursement of more than $15 million to grow wheat and rice in the central African state.

Cameroon Orders Investment in Wheat Production to Quell Protests Sparked by Shortages

The government asked civilians to eat locally produced food instead of imports.

The women say it is difficult for them to obey government instructions to stop overdependence on expensive imported rice, maize and beans because a 60% increase in prices for fertilizer is making it difficult to grow crops locally.

The agriculture ministry says it has already spent one million dollars on fertilizer subsidies since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.

International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. It also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

Source: VOA

How did more than 600 Cameroonians come to find themselves stranded on a Caribbean island that many of them had never heard of? Journalist Gemma Handy reports from St John’s in Antigua.

Daniel fights to hold back the tears as he recounts the day his two younger brothers were shot dead by militia during a trip to the market in his native Cameroon.

They are among more than 6,000 people to have been killed amid a bitter secessionist war that has been raging for six years in the Central African country.

Hundreds of thousands more have been forced from their homes since violence broke out in 2017 between security forces and Anglophone separatists who say they face discrimination in the majority French-speaking nation.

Daniel’s despair intensifies as he explains how he faces life imprisonment or death should he return – and pleads with the authorities not to send him home.

He was hoping to reach the United States, which last June offered temporary protected status to Cameroonians already in the country, and where he had planned to flee under the radar.

And neither is Daniel, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, alone.

He is one of more than 600 desperate Cameroonian migrants to have instead found himself stranded on a tiny island of 94,000 people in the Eastern Caribbean via what appears to have been an unscrupulous people-smuggling operation.

Some forked out as much as $6,000 (£5,000) on charter flights marketed on social media by bogus tour companies pledging to organise immigration logistics as part of the package.

Most of those who have unwittingly ended up in Antigua – an island some of them said they had never heard of before – say they had only expected to stay for a few days before being taken to South America, from where they had planned to make their way north to the US.

But when the transport failed to materialise, they were stuck in Antigua with no money left to fund their onward journey.

The fiasco erupted in the wake of attempts by the government of Antigua and Barbuda to establish a direct air route between the twin isle nation and Central Africa.

Three centuries after Antiguans’ ancestors were first forced onto slave ships from Africa to work on brutal British-owned sugar plantations on the island, many welcomed new linkages with the motherland. The first charter flight touched down – fittingly – on Independence Day on 1 November with a water cannon salute.

Within weeks, however, at least three more charters operated by another carrier mirroring its operations arrived in the country bearing throngs of Cameroonians escaping persecution.

According to official figures, 637 Central Africans remain on the island, with depleted finances due to the hefty fees forked out for the December and January flights.

Many are staying in ramshackle homes with sparse utilities at very low rents or cheap guesthouses, while they try to scrabble together funds to continue their journey.

It has created a complicated situation for Antigua and Barbuda which is more used to welcoming tourists than refugees. What most residents are united on is sympathy; to what extent the situation should impact the local landscape with its limited resources less so.

“The government needs to resolve this matter both for the poor people of Cameroon and for the poor people of Antigua,” aviation entrepreneur Makeda Mikael tells the BBC. “Opening up the mid-Atlantic as a migrant route could ruin tourism in the Caribbean.”

The government previously declared its intention to repatriate the refugees. It has since announced a U-turn on humanitarian grounds.

Information Minister Melford Nicholas said a skills audit will be carried out on the migrants to “determine the benefits” of allowing them to stay.

“As the economy continues to expand, we’re going to need additional skills,” he told a press conference. “We will give them accommodation and find a way to give them legal status here.”

He added that the government hoped islanders would “embrace and have an open heart” to the Africans.

Some have done just that, assisting what they see as their ancestral brethren with food, money and a place to stay.

But the government’s stance has not been welcomed by all. Opposition politicians staged a demonstration on 7 February demanding an inquiry into how the situation arose and a consultation on what should happen next.

In the meantime, incoming charter flights from Central Africa have been suspended. Governor General Sir Rodney Williams recently reiterated the government’s pledge to help their African “brothers and sisters”.

He said the country was “committed to protecting all residents from exploitation and harsh treatment”, adding that “no foreign national, except for criminals, should fear deportation”.

Antigua and Barbuda is not the only Caribbean country affected by an influx of Cameroonian migrants.

A few hundred miles away in Trinidad, five Cameroonians awaiting repatriation were granted an 11th-hour court injunction on 16 February preventing the move after intervention by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

Precisely how they reached Trinidad remains unclear but they shared similar stories of arbitrary arrests, torture and death threats in their homeland.

What started as peaceful protests in October 2016 by professionals protesting about discrimination against English-speaking Cameroonians escalated into a bloody conflict when government military forces cracked down.

There are now several armed separatist groups across Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions burning down entire villages and targeting any institution that represents the state, including schools and hospitals, Amnesty International researcher Fabien Offner says.

“It’s definitely one of the worst human rights situations we are covering in the African continent,” Mr Offner tells the BBC.

“Everyone is running for their lives,” Daniel concurs. “Those who are very poor don’t know where to go, they don’t have money to fly away. If some of these children can run to Antigua they should let them.”

Edith Oladele is an Antiguan who used to live in Cameroon.

“Cameroonians are generally a very peace-loving people. They’re just trying to make a better life for their children and families,” she says.

“When we go over there we are welcomed with open arms as the descendants of slaves who’ve come back home. I am praying these people will be able to stay here.”

Culled from The BBC

Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces will avenge the killing of the Field Marshal and General Transporter who was shot dead recently in Meme, Vice President Dabney Yerima of the Ambazonia Interim Government has said.

Both the Field Marshal of Lebialem and General Transporter of Meme were killed following a Cameroon government military special operation in the two divisions in the South West region.

The killing of the two fearless Amba commanders remain the most high-profile in the Southern zone of Ambazonia since the conflict started six years ago.

Vice President Dabney Yerima said: “The Ambazonia Interim Government insist on the serious pursuit of the Francophone soldiers by Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards, and I have no doubt that the blood of the two great Southern Cameroons martyr will be avenged”  echoing what Amba fighters in Lebialem and Meme had said via an audio message.

Southern Cameroons have been rocked by conflict following the crackdown on separatist movements after Ambazonia’s self-proclamation of independence on October 1, 2017.

The previous year, this area–once part of British colonies in Africa but which decided to join French Cameroon–was the scene of peaceful protests to demand greater autonomy or independence arguing discrimination by central authorities, also on language issues.

Since then, armed groups have proliferated and support for the separatists, hitherto rather marginal, has increased. The government has responded with a harsh crackdown, during which human rights organizations have accused the security forces of committing atrocities.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Government forces went on a rampage this week in Kumba, Southwest region where they arrested many young Southern Cameroonians for unknown reasons.

The youths, most of whom say they do not know why they have been arrested, have been beaten and detained by Cameroonian soldiers who are asking the parents of those arrested to pay bribes for their children to be released.

A source in Kumba has informed the Cameroon Concord News that the young men “were forcefully taken out of their houses in a military raid carried out in the morning of Thursday, March 2, 2023 at about 2am and driven to the police station.”

Government forces have the bad habit of arresting young men for no just reasons and this is fueling a lot of tension and fear in the town, the source added.

The soldiers deployed in Southern Cameroons are here to make money and they are not missing any opportunity to exploit the already impoverished population, our source underscored.

It is challenging to drive around Southern Cameroons these days because of mixed patrol checkpoints in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

From Buea to Kumba, there are 9 checkpoints and all commercial drivers plying that road must pay CFAF 1,000 at each checkpoint. This is draining and it is killing business, the source lamented.

From Buea to Mamfe, there are 17 checkpoints and passengers are put through unnecessary checks which make free movement within the Southwest region challenging, our source pointed out.

The Southern Cameroons crisis which started as a protest by teachers and lawyers in 2016 has already resulted in the deaths of some 10,000 people and there is no end to the killings as government troops think that killing civilians is a sport.

Instead of seeking to minimize the killings, Cameroon government soldiers have transformed the unfortunate situation into a money-making business and this is with the support of their bosses in Yaoundé.

This explains why some Yaoundé government officials are determined to scuttle any efforts aimed at bringing peace to the country’s two English-speaking regions like the Canada-led talks which were announced a few weeks ago.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai