Life

7, February 2024

Biya regime vows to intensify fight against female genital mutilation ⁰

Many Cameroonian women still suffer from female genital mutilation (FGM) and it was imperative to intensify campaigns against the scourge, a senior official said on Tuesday.

“Mutilations exist and we must come together to eliminate them because it is an atrocious practice which has no justification and rather causes harmful consequences on the life of the woman,” Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family Marie-Therese Abena Ondoa said during a press briefing in Yaounde, the capital, to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM.

“Cameroon due to its commitment is firmly involved in the global fight and is translating its valid commitment into actions by taking political measures and legal framework … and providing support to civil society organizations,” she added.

The phenomenon affects 1.4 percent nationally and 20 percent in focus areas, according to official statistics from the Ministry for the Promotion of Women and the Family.

The International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM is celebrated globally every Feb. 6 as part of the United Nations’ efforts to eradicate FGM, which is one of the ancient cultures practiced in some parts of Africa.

Source: Xinhuanet

30, January 2024

Africa Cup of Nations: Nollywood star Kanayo Kanayo angers Cameroonian Fans ⁰

Nollywood legend Kanayo Kanayo might not be visiting Cameroon anytime soon, but thousands of his fans both in English and French speaking Cameroon have made it clear that if he has any plans to come to Cameroon he needs to be prepared for a very different retelling.

The veteran Nigerian actor who became famous in Cameroon following the role he played in the movie Rituals, recently showered praises on Victor Osimhem, the Super Eagles striker after the victory over the Indomitable Lions in the Africa Cup of Nations 2023.

The reaction from Smiling George as he referred to himself in the movie has not gone done well with his fans in Buea, Bamenda, Douala and Yaoundé the nation’s capital.

“It is disheartening to read that Smiling George who has maintained a kind of silence of the lamb on every issue deep within the continent is now talking about football” a Kanayo fan in Buea told Cameroon Concord News.

“It is weird! weird! I think Amba fighters will eventually track him down whenever he comes here—hahahahahahaahahaha” another Kanayo fan in Douala quipped.

“Maybe Kanayo provided six human heads for Victor Osimhen to sign the contract with Napoli” Cameroon Concord News editor who always referenced the movie Rituals said of the renowned Nigeria movie star.

Kanayo Kanayo sang the praises of Osimhen, declaring him the Footballer of the Year.

Congratulating Nigerians, he added that to whom much is given, much is expected.

He said: “Eheeennnn. Victor Osimhen has shown the stuff a footballer of the year is made of. To whom much is given……….Congratulations Nigeria. Football lives here.”

By Kingsley Betek in Douala

26, January 2024

Children of Nollywood actor Mr Ibu arrested ⁰

Two of popular Nigerian actor John Okafor’s children have been arrested for allegedly stealing money raised to pay for his hospital fees last year.

Known as Mr Ibu, the 62-year-old had a leg amputated in November after fans had donated to a crowd-funding scheme.

His son Daniel Okafor and adopted daughter Jasmine Chioma are accused of hacking into his phone and taking $60,700 (£47,800) for themselves.

The pair have not commented since their arrest in the city of Lagos.

The police issued a statement about their arrest and their investigation into the alleged fraud after the siblings appeared at a bailing hearing on Thursday.

A court said the two could be freed if a $17,000 bond was posted. They remain in custody.

The police’s criminal investigation unit said it had discovered that they had allegedly installed an app on their father’s phone after the fund-raising began.

This allegedly enabled them to start transferring money out of his account.

They are expected to appear in court on 11 March for the next hearing.

Mr Ibu’s health issues first came to public attention last October, when the family posted a video on social media of the Nollywood star celebrating in hospital. In the clip he asked his fans for help with medical bills, eliciting a huge response.

The actor became famous 20 years ago in the Nigerian comedy Mr Ibu – which became his nickname. It is still regarded as one of the best Nigerian performances in a comic role.

He went on to act in several other notable movies in Nollywood, as Nigeria’s multi-billion-dollar film industry is known, in a career that has spanned more than two decades.

The star told a local newspaper a few years ago that he had a total of 13 children some of whom were adopted.

Source: BBC

25, January 2024

Cameroon designer brings African couture to Paris Fashion Week ⁰

Imane Ayissi is on a mission to put authentic African textiles in the spotlight but faces an uphill battle as a pioneer African couturier at Paris Fashion Week in France.

The bark of the Obom tree, kente cloth from Ghana and kapok fibres from Burkina Faso are some of the textiles — little-known in Europe — that the Cameroonian turned into bespoke dresses for his haute couture show in Paris on Monday.

“Often when we talk about African fashion, we think of colorful fabrics that Africans actually only started wearing relatively recently,” Ayissi told AFP at his workshop ahead of the show.

Ayissi — who in 2020 became the first designer from Sub-Saharan Africa at haute couture week — seeks to resurrect more traditional fabrics like rafia, drawn from local trees and plants, that were used before the African market was flooded with imports during the colonial period.

Source: AFP

25, January 2024

Schools reopen in Southern Cameroons ⁰

In the early morning in Buea, the chief town of Cameroon’s war-torn English-speaking region of the Southwest, 18-year-old Carine and her younger sister, Judith, are getting ready for school. But for these teenagers, it has been a long time coming.

Judith is 15 but is still in primary school. Carine was supposed to be in university, but she just started secondary school. They are among hundreds of thousands of children in the country’s two English-speaking regions of the Northwest and Southwest, who have resumed school after five years.

Carine and Judith had to stay at home since 2017 due to a persistent crisis in the regions, where separatists have been clashing with government forces in a bid to secede from the French-majority Cameroon and create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia”.

“I feel so happy I am able to attend school after five years. This is a dream come true,” Carine said in Buea, asking for her family name and school not to be published.

Judith and Carine fled the locality of Ekona in the region with their family in 2022 amid renewed fighting and relocated to Buea where they enrolled in school last year. Still reeling from her ordeal in the war-torn zone, Judith said she felt especially fortunate to go to school because some of her friends have not been able to study due to the conflict.

“Running up and down from bush to bush was difficult. Now I am focused on my studies to fulfill my dream of becoming a doctor,” said Judith who also asked for her family name not to be mentioned.

Fighting between government forces and armed separatists has made it too dangerous for formal lessons in the Anglophone regions of the Central African nation. Separatists enforced a school boycott in the troubled regions since 2016 to protest against what they described as educational injustices against English-speakers. The school boycott left more than 800,000 children out of school, according to UNICEF.

Now, schools are gradually reopening in safer areas of the regions after Cameroon’s military liberated more than 100 villages and schools from rebel occupation.

“In 2022, we expected 429 secondary schools to reopen, but only 233 functioned. In 2023, almost all the schools reopened, and this year, attendance has improved significantly,” said Hannah Mbua Etonde, chief of secondary education in the Southwest region.

“We are seeing students coming back to school in their numbers; many schools are also gradually reopening. The situation is generally improving,” said Adolph Lele Lafrique, governor of the Northwest region, adding that since the start of the year, there has been little or no attack on teachers, students and schools in the region.

The armed conflict is not over, but some separatist leaders are now encouraging children to return to school, saying a boycott is no longer a weapon of their struggle for independence. Parents here said they’re breathing a sigh of relief after the call for school resumption by the separatist leaders.

Augustine, whose name has been changed for safety reasons, teared up thinking of the bombing that leveled his son’s primary school in Batibo, a locality in the Northwest region but is determined to ensure the eighth-grader continues his studies. “My son’s school is not there anymore, but he has started school here in Buea. The most important thing is for our children to learn. Almost all schools are now functioning, and parents are no longer afraid to send their children to school,” he said.

“My humble plea as a parent to the administration is that security should be guaranteed 100 percent, 24/7 for our kids to go to school,” said Michael Njie whose child started school in 2022 after spending four years at home.

Improving school attendance is a top priority for the government given the war’s long-term social and economic impact on the country, its children, and the willingness of those who fled to return. Across the regions, authorities have been repairing damaged schools and building new ones.

As Cameroon joins the rest of the world to celebrate International Day for Education, officials have been visiting schools in the troubled regions to assure parents everything is under control and that their children will be safe.

“We just want to learn. Let them keep the guns away from schools and students,” Judith said.

By Haggai Fung Achuo

22, January 2024

Biya regime launches world’s first nationwide malaria vaccination programme ⁰

The world’s first routine vaccine programme against malaria has started in Cameroon, in a move projected to save thousands of children’s lives across Africa.

The symbolic first jab was given to a baby girl named Daniella at a health facility near Yaoundé on Monday.

Every year 600,000 people die of malaria in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Children under five make up at least 80% of those deaths.

Cameroon is offering the RTS,S vaccine free of charge to all infants up to the age of six months old.

Patients require a total of four doses. Health officials say these will be given at the same time as other routine childhood vaccines to make it easier for parents.

It comes after successful pilot campaigns in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi – where the vaccine caused a 13% drop in malaria deaths in children of eligible age, says Unicef.

The jab is known to be effective in at least 36% of cases, according to US researchers, meaning it could save over one in three lives.

While the rollout is undoubtedly a relief and a life-saver, its relatively low efficacy rate means that it is not a “silver bullet”, argues Willis Akhwale at End Malaria Council Kenya.

But for medics it is an important additional tool in the fight against malaria alongside mosquito nets and malaria tablets. Using all three together potentially gives children 90% protection from malaria, one UK-led study estimates.

“We have a capacity to considerably reduce the number of cases and deaths from malaria and accelerate the elimination of the disease,” Cameroonian doctor Shalom Ndoula, who helped to lead the vaccine rollout in his country, told BBC Newsday.

Development of the RTS,S vaccine has taken 30 years of research by the British drug-maker GSK.

The World Health Organization, which approved the vaccine, hailed the launch in Cameroon as a historic moment in the global fight against the mosquito-borne disease.

There was another breakthrough earlier this month, when Cape Verde became the first sub-Saharan African country in 50 years to be officially declared malaria-free by the global health body.

‘Safe, effective and free’

Fears and doubts among some Cameroonians about the safety and efficacy of the doses have raised concerns about vaccine hesitancy.

“When people say we are being used as guinea pigs, that’s not particularly true,” Wilfred Fon Mbacham, who is a Cameroonian king and also a professor of public health biotechnology specialising in malaria, told BBC Newsday.

“We as scientists have to do much more to educate the public on what it is, and the benefits it has, so that we can calm their fears.”

Vaccination official Daniele Ekoto at Monday’s launch told the BBC she was reassuring mothers after administering doses to their children, insisting that “it’s a vaccine that’s safe, effective and free”.

But for others the benefits are obvious.

“I decided to vaccinate my child to avoid malaria. It’s a bad thing and when it affects a child, they can easily die,” one mother told the BBC at the same vaccination centre in Soa, near Yaoundé, where Monday’s launch happened.

In 2021, Africa accounted for 95% of malaria cases globally and about 96% of related deaths.

“I have prayed and waited all my life for this vaccine”, Mr Mbacham told the BBC.

The WHO says Cameroon records about six million malaria cases every year, with 4,000 deaths in health facilities – most of them children below five.

Six-month-old children in 42 districts with the greatest rates of morbidity and mortality will receive four doses until the age of two.

Twenty other countries aim to roll out the programme this year, according to the global vaccine alliance, Gavi. Among them are Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone.

There is already a big demand for doses, but only about 18 million are available for allocation before 2025, according to Gavi.

It falls short of what is needed by the countries the vaccine alliance has recommended for approval.

The anticipated rollout of a second jab – R21 – developed by Oxford University, is expected to significantly increase the number of doses available for use.

This is to be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, which aims to make 100 million doses per year, so long as it successfully passes the regulatory approvals following its recommendation for use by the WHO last year.

Source: BBC

20, January 2024

Mathias Kimbeng: Influential History teacher dies in Limbe ⁰

Renowned Cameroon Anglophone history teacher Mathias Kimbeng has died in Limbe the chief city in Fako Division.

A post on social media, which has hundreds of his former students said: Mathias Kimbeng sociable, philanthropic, sympathetic, enterprising, brilliant and God fearing. Boooh Kims RIP

Reports said he died today shortly after conducting his normal daily routines, but the cause of his death has not been made public.

By Rita Akana in Limbe

This item is still developing

19, January 2024

Snoop Dogg’s daughter Cori Broadus cried after suffering stroke aged 24 ⁰

Cori Broadus, the daughter of rapper Snoop Dogg, has said she broke down in tears when doctors told her she had suffered a “severe stroke” aged 24.

Broadus shared her news with a picture of herself lying in a hospital bed on an Instagram story on Thursday, to her 657,000 followers.

She commented: “I had a severe stroke this AM. I started breaking down crying when they told me.

“I’m only 24. What did I do in my past to deserve all of this?”

Doctors sometimes refer to stroke as a heart attack for the brain.

It occurs when the blood supply to the brain is stopped.

Replying to friends who sent her well wishes on Instagram, Broadus posted: “I love you, I love you.”

Source: BBC

9, January 2024

Yaoundé to introduce malaria vaccine ⁰

Cameroon will introduce the malaria vaccine on Jan. 22, according to Manaouda Malachie, the country’s minister of public health.

The move is part of concerted efforts to enhance the fight against malaria and reduce morbidity and mortality associated with the disease, the minister said in a statement released Monday night.

“The selected vaccine, Mosquirix RTS, has been chosen by the country based on its pre-qualification, ensuring guaranteed quality, efficacy, and safety for its inclusion in the vaccination programs,” he said. “The vaccine will be offered in both public and private health facilities across 42 health districts. The vaccines provided for children are safe, free, and effective.”

Cameroon took delivery in November last year of 331,200 doses of malaria vaccine, the first consignment to arrive in the central African country.

Malaria is responsible for 70 percent of deaths among children in Cameroon, according to the Ministry of Public Health.

Source: Xinhuanet

17, December 2023

Ireland: Historic launch of Dóchas by Tina Kembo brings Cameroonian writers to world stage ⁰

Dóchas, meaning Hope, is a collection of poems about the beauty, suffering and restoration of humanity. The first chapter focuses on the beauty and good things that exist in the world. The second chapter speaks of the suffering that humanity experiences and the third is on the restoration that comes after.

The event was a huge success and was graced with the presence of prominent Cameroonian and African dignitaries including important guests such as the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Cameroon Concord News Group, the Right Hon. Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai and his beautiful wife Odette Agbaw-Ebai, the renowned property developer Chief Tang Welensky, members of the Open Arms Church Newbridge, one of the lead Pentecostal voices in Ireland Paul Adenle and Eric Njolai a senior Anglophone Cameroon elite to mention a few.

An opening prayer was said and the author, Tina Kembo stepped forward and gave a brilliant remark about the background of the book and expressed gratitude for the support and participation of everyone present. She noted that “to everyone in a dark place, facing a difficult time, experiencing loss, grief, pain, sickness, there is hope for the future. There are good things and people in our world but evil and suffering exists too.”

Afterwards, Tina read out excerpts from the book and the book was launched by her wonderful parents, Anastine Kembo and Edwin Njeta with her dad moonlighting as her Chief Launcher. Her dad described her work as a well-written book with potential for great impact.

Tina Kembo was born in Bamenda, the chief city in the North West region of Cameroon in 1997.

By Njaringi Agbaw-Ebai in Newbridge, Ireland