Tens of thousands of people who fled Cameroon’s separatist conflict will receive food aid next week after months of hiding in the forest with nothing to eat, the United Nations said.

About 437,000 people have fled their homes in Cameroon’s western English-speaking regions since late last year, when insurgents started fighting to break away from the majority French-speaking state.

But government restrictions and a lack of security on the ground have made it difficult for aid agencies to reach them, and a tense election last month halted humanitarian work for weeks, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

President Paul Biya was re-elected by a landslide on Oct. 7 to extend his 36-year rule, while the opposition claimed fraud.

The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) will deliver food to 50,000 people on Nov. 14 in the first major food drive, said WFP country representative Abdoulaye Balde.

“The problem is access,” Balde told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The United Nations delivered some non-food items over six months ago, but afterward struggled to get into the zone, he said.

“We didn’t know what there was there. We didn’t know where these people were.”

The government has organised several small-scale food distributions in recent months, but most people have yet to benefit, said Modibo Traore, head of OCHA in Cameroon.

Cameroon’s government spokesman and minister of territorial administration could not be reached for comment.

“The food situation in the coming months is going to deteriorate,” Traore told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Funds from external donors have been very, very limited. That’s preventing us from scaling up the response,” he said, adding that lengthy government clearance processes have also hampered aid delivery.

Many of the people are living outside, in need of shelter, medical supplies, and basic items such as soap, he said.

But several among them said hunger was the greatest concern.

Jenny, a 22-year-old who gave only her first name, is living with extended family in the outskirts of Douala after fleeing her village in the southwestern region when fighting broke out.

“Thanks to God, we are alive,” she said. “But we don’t eat.”

Source: Reuters

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The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

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The conflict between the Cameroonian Government and Ambazonia Separatists has led to influx of many asylum seekers into Nigeria’s border towns in Sardauna and Kurmi Local Government Areas in Taraba. Confirming the development during a visit to the area on Thursday, Taraba Governor, Mr Darius Ishaku, said that the state government would assist the refugees with shelter and relief materials.

Darius appealed to the host communities to accommodate the refuge seekers as same gesture was extended to Taraba residents when Cameroon took them after being displaced by the Mambilla crisis in June, 2017. Investigations by News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) revealed that the worst-hit communities are in Nwah Sub-Division of Nkembe Division in Cameroon, where the Ambazonian fighters allegedly attacked Fulani communities, killing many people and rustling their cattle.

A senior Nigeria Immigration Service official in Gembu, who pleaded anonymity, told NAN that the displaced Cameroonians were still moving into Nigeria for safety through border villages of Lip, Mbankim and Chabbal-Kareje. He said that no fewer than 500 refugees were inside Gembu town while more than 1,500 others were scattered across other border villages, including Sakaka, Warkaka, Ndumyaji and Inkiri. The official said that no fewer than 1,000 Cameroonians were also taking refuge with relatives in Tep, Leme, Nguroje, Yerimaru, Mbar, Dorofi and Barup villages.

The source said the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had in March, 2018, received no fewer 556 refugees in the area, some of whom were given letters of attestation. The official urged the UNHCR and the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) to intervene urgently by screening and issuing the fresh “refugees’’ appropriate means of identification. “This will help in monitoring their activities and check any criminal tendencies among them,’’ the source added.

Also in an interview, a Cameroonian Human Rights defender, Prof. Sarli Saadu-Nana, told NAN that the Ambazonian separatists were targeting Fulani communities because of their wealth which the fighters believed could finance their war. “Secondly, they are perceived as supporting the government, and as such, are legitimate targets for reprisals when soldiers burn their villages or kill the fighters. “They are easy targets as they are isolated, while the fighters have their camps in grazing areas. When the fighters are attacked by security agencies, they believe herders betrayed them. “Similarly, some farmers are settling old scores of farmer-grazer disputes,’’ he said. He called on the Federal Government and other well-meaning individuals and organisations to come to the aid of the refugees.

A visit to the area revealed that the refugees were living under difficult conditions, without enough food, shelter and medicines. An elderly woman, Dudu Maimuna, who narrated her ordeal in Tep village, told NAN that they escaped from Tim community in Cameroon without a single property. “We have lost everything and we have no food, no water, no shelter; we therefore, need urgent help because as you can see, our children are hungry and sick,’’ she said in Fulfulde dialect.

Malam Abdu Yerima from Jam village in Tim said he narrowly escaped death as his family was trapped in a hut while the fighters set the house ablaze. “Two of my brothers were shot and killed when they attempted to escape, but by the grace of God I found myself here. “We are currently living under harsh conditions without basic needs such as food, clothes and shelter,’’ Yerima said. Alhaji Saidu Bawa, Leader of Fulani community in Sardauna Local Government Area, said they were aware of the condition of the displaced persons, adding that the community had been mobilising aid for them even before government’s intervention.

Source: vanguardngr.com

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

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A Cameroonian anglophone separatist leader was in court on Thursday, in his first public appearance since he was extradited from Nigeria in January, amid spiralling violence in English-speaking areas.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, who wants Cameroon’s two anglophone regions to separate from the French-speaking part of the country and last year spearheaded a symbolic declaration of independence, appeared with nine other defendants at a brief hearing in the capital Yaounde.

“This day is a big day because all (ten) defendants were there,” lawyer Me John Feu Nsoh told reporters after the court appearance, which was about the group’s petition to be freed.

Ayuk Tabe, who pronounced himself the president of a new republic called “Ambazonia” in October 2017, was arrested with 46 others in Nigeria and extradited in January.

Cameroon has called the 47 “terrorists” and said they would “answer for their crimes”, as tensions mount in the Southwest and Northwest Regions, home to most of the country’s English-speakers.

Three lawyers filed a motion for the “immediate” release of ten of them in October, including Ayuk Tabe.

On leaving the courtroom the group waved at relatives held at a distance, before getting into a police bus, according to AFP.

English-speaking separatists complain of discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority in education, the justice system and the economy in the largely francophone central African nation.

In 2017 anglophone separatists took up arms, attacking security forces and torching symbols of the administration, such as schools.

The government has refused to engage in dialogue with separatists and has sent forces into the area to restore order.

The unrest has worsened this year, claiming the lives of more than 400 civilians and an unknown number of separatists in the year to September, according to the International Crisis Group think-tank.

More than 300 000 people have fled the violence, some to neighbouring Nigeria.

AFP

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

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Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

Southern Cameroons Acting President Dr Samuel Ikome Sako is expected to address the Ambazonian nation on the happenings in neighboring French Cameroun and the first appearance of the Ambazonian leader Sisiku Ayuk Julius Tabe in a military tribunal in Yaoundé.   People in the know have hinted Cameroon Intelligence Report that Dr Sako will vow to use every resource available to defeat French Cameroun terrorism. The Ambazonian Acting President will also issue an ultimatum to French Cameroun ailing leader Paul Biya to release Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his aides or face severe consequences.

Reliable information from the Ambazonian Interim Government that filtered to the Cameroon Concord News Group indicated that Dr. Sako’s words will be very blunt and the leader will make public an evaluation of the county-by-county self defense efforts of the Southern Cameroons restoration forces and he will urge Southern Cameroonians to be patient and strong.

“Acting President Sako will be speaking to two audiences: one domestic and the other foreign” noted our senior political man Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai.  In a firm voice, Dr Sako will address French Cameroun political leaders and Southern Cameroonians including West Cameroonians still serving in the Yaoundé regime.

The leader of the Ambazonian Interim Government will also call on the US government to deliver justice to French Cameroun political and military leaders over the killing of an American missionary in Southern Cameroons.  Millions of Southern Cameroonians have offered support to the struggle both at home and abroad but Acting President Sako was quoted as saying recently that “Ambazonians face a choice either you are with Biya and French Cameroun, or you are with the IG and the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.”

The Ambazonian Acting President has been talking to international opinion leaders recently including Prof PLO Lumumba.

By Asu Vera Eyere

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

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Fifty-seven Chibok school girls being held by Boko Haram have been sighted in two villages in Cameroon, parents of the abducted girls told Daily Trust on Sunday yesterday. The girls were seen by other female captives who at different times were kept by the insurgents in the two villages in northern part of Cameroon, the Chairman of Chibok Girls Parents Association, Yakubu Nkenke, told our correspondent yesterday.

Nkenke said the girls who escaped and returned to their village near Chibok, disclosed that the 57 girls were broken into two groups and held in Garin Magaji and Garin Mallam villages located in Marwa in northern Cameroon. According to him, all the girls were married off to Boko Haram fighters across the border and many of them had children.

“Some of the captives escaped from the villages and spent months in military facility in Bama, where they were screened before they were finally released. One of them told us she met many of our abducted girls in two Cameroonian villages”, he disclosed.

“Seven of the abducted Chibok girls are living in Garin Magaji, while 50 others are held in Garin Mallam where they live with their husbands and children,” he added. Nkenke said testimonies from parents as well as records in the association’s register matched the names of the girls mentioned by the escapees.

Calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to collaborate with his Cameroonian counterpart to rescue the girls, Nkenke said he believed the military had got the information when they screened the escapees in Bama five months ago.

The Chibok leader noted that the information had thrown Chibok community into confusion and grief as parents expected the authorities to swing into action.

Daily Trust had reported on Friday that 25 parents of the abducted girls have died. However, Nkenke reiterated that the parents remained grateful to the federal government under Buhari, for negotiating the release of 112 girls and rescuing four others.

“Following the visit to Dapchi town by a federal government delegation to meet the parents of Leah Sharibu, the only remaining Dapchi school girl in Boko Haram captivity, the parents of more than 100 Chibok girls still with the insurgents called on President Buhari to extend a similar gesture to Chibok.

“The parents trust the Buhari administration because they fulfilled their promises on the freed 103 girls. Even the four who escaped on their own were able to make it because of the pressure mounted on the insurgents. But as human beings they feel it is taking too long to bring back their children after they were told it would happen soon”, he said.

Meanwhile, a former Boko Haram female captive, Zainab, who escaped three months ago told our correspondent that she lived with three Chibok girls in a mountain community, Dutsen Ibrahim, around Gwoza in Borno State, near the Cameroon border.

“I met some of the Chibok girls in Sambisa, when I lived with my first Boko Haram husband in Sambisa. After my husband died in a battle, I was married to another man, Nuru and we moved to Dutsen Ibrahim, near Ngoshe. There I met three Chibok girls. One of them now bears the Muslim name, Zainab but I don’t know her Christian name. The other one is Yagana,” she said.

When contacted, Col. Clement Nwachukwu, the Media Coordinator, Operation Lafiya Dole, said he could not comment on the matter as he had been outside Maiduguri, his operational base and he was therefore not aware of such development.

“I am in a noisy environment, I am currently  in Biu for an assignment, so I don’t have update on what is going on there”, Col. Nwachukwu said.

Source: Daily Trust

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Banking IBAN: GB51 BARC 2049 1103 9130 15

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The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

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The UN has said that Cameroon is forcing Nigerian refugees to return home, even when it is not safe for the refugees to do so.

More than 100,000 refugees who fled violence in Nigeria have sought refuge in northern Cameroon.

But with the host country also battling against the armed group Boko Haram, the UN says that the government is now sending some of the refugees back, even if the same violence they fled still exists.

Cameroon’s government insists that returns are voluntary and only when conditions are safe.

Six people were killed and about 80 injured when a train derailed near the Moroccan capital Rabat on Tuesday, officials said.

The train derailed near Sidi Bouknadel, a town near Rabat, on the busy coastal line connecting the capital to the commercial hub of Casablanca.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear.

A Reuters reporter at the site saw a train derailed near some industrial and residential buildings.

Source: Reuters

Over the last two years, Cameroon’s government has gained a poor reputation for being repressive when it comes to internet freedoms. It’s had one of the longest-running intermittent internet shutdowns on record of 230 days between January 2017 and March 2018 as it tried to prevent political activists in the English-speaking regions of the country from using social media platforms to share information or organize.

Because of this reputation, many watchers expected the government would again block the internet in the run-up to a highly contentious election in which the president, Paul Biya, 85, is looking to extend his 36-year rule by another seven years.

Yet, that has brought a different challenge for the government.

Voting, which took place on Sunday (Oct. 7), was mainly straightforward and peaceful, though not for the conflict-ridden Anglophone regions, where gunfire and other incidents were recorded in Kumba, Buea and Bamenda.

Although normal life in most of Cameroon resumed on Monday, anxiety remains high as there is now a long wait for results. It is expected to take up to 15 days from election day on Oct. 7 before official results are announced. The problem with that is Cameroonian social media channels on Facebook and WhatsApp have been flooded with unverified voting numbers from local polling stations. Most of the voting trends shared favor opposition candidates and there are fears the information which is spreading rapidly will likely spark some sort of official government backlash.

Peter Essoka, president of Cameroon’s National Communication Council (NCC) criticized people sharing unverified result trends. He said only the Constitutional Council has the mandate to proclaim results.  As the unverified results go viral, Paul Atanga Nji, minister of territorial administration, has warned that no one should substitute the Constitutional Council which alone has the power to declare the winner of Sunday’s poll. “Any form of challenge to the verdict of the polls other than the constitutional legal means will not be tolerated,” Atanga Nji said.

But some have not taken the warning of the government officials seriously, making the country experience scenes of electoral confusion that have become something of a hallmark of recent African elections, with opposition candidates claiming early victories ahead of official results.

Maurice Kamto, one of the presidential candidates, who was backed at the eleventh hour by another candidate, Akere Muna, claimed victory on Monday ( Oct. 8). At a press conference in the capital Yaounde, Kamto called on the “outgoing president to organize a peaceful way to transfer power.”

This self-declaration of victory, without evidence, has raised fears that the deteriorating security situation in the country could worsen.

Statistics by the electoral commission — Elections Cameroon (ELECAM) — show that 6.6 million voters were registered in the country and 19,356 in the diaspora, though Cameroon has well over 18 million potential voters. Some of the registered voters were disenfranchised.

Culled from Quartz

A small boat carrying refugees has capsized off the coast of the West African country of Guinea-Bissau.

Port officials said on Wednesday that the capsized boat may have had more than 60 people aboard.

Commander Siga Batista said the vessel, classified as a pirogue narrow wooden fishing boat, sank on Monday night in the Atlantic.

“An overloaded pirogue, transporting illegal migrants, capsized in our waters,” Batista told AFP by telephone, saying that the fisheries surveillance department had alerted him to the disaster.

“We don’t know how many people were on board when the boat sank, nor their identity or even their nationality. But according to information that has reached me there were more than 60 people on board the pirogue,” Batista said.

No survivors have been found but local radio stations have asked fishermen to tell authorities if they spot any bodies or passengers still alive.

The impoverished country, which has 200 kilometers of coastline and no patrol ships, was facing difficulty in launching a rescue operation.

“Due to the financial situation, we have had difficulty organizing a rescue operation,” Batista said.

The impoverished former Portuguese colony has been in the grip of a power struggle since August 2015.

Legislative elections are scheduled for November 18.

Asylum seekers set out from Africa, hoping to land in Europe and find a better life there.

According to the UN migration agency (IOM), in 2017, over 3,000 refugees lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean.

Source: Presstv

“We live in fear,” said Edouard, a French-speaking resident of Limbe, a coastal town in Cameroon’s southwest anglophone region where francophone people have been frequently targeted by armed English-speaking separatists.

Trepidation has given way to terror in the cosmopolitan tourist town of 85,000 with a significant francophone population as the anglophone separatist crisis has grown following a symbolic independence declaration a year ago.

A number of French-speakers — both military and civilian — have fled the town with its sandy beaches and lush mountain backdrop after coming under attack. “I moved my family to Douala because we live in fear” here, said Edouard, a young secretary referring to the country’s nearby economic capital.

Other French-speakers, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, described how their loved ones had been “tortured” by the separatists seeking to break away from Cameroon. Cameroon’s southwest, including Limbe, and northwest are home to largely French-speaking Cameroon’s anglophone community who make up around one fifth of the population.

The separatists have vowed to disrupt presidential elections on Sunday in which President Paul Biya, who has dismissed the nascent insurgency as mere “trouble”, will seek a seventh term.

Edouard said he will never again return to Mile 4, the outer suburb where he had lived for years until his departure in July. Flanked by rolling hills, the area is isolated from the rest of the town and is one of the few places where separatists armed with machetes roam with impunity, according to witnesses.

When the men of the separatist movement are not asserting their presence in Mile 4, they hide in the nearby foothills. Late on the night of September 26, there was an attack on Mile 4’s police station that claimed the lives of two officers. The army encircled the area for several days following the audacious raid.

Several other attacks apparently intended to intimidate the area’s French speakers have been reported in Mile 4.

– ‘Situation could deteriorate’ –

“They came into the areas and started demanding which were the French homes,” said a resident.

“They came to my house twice to kidnap me — but fortunately they didn’t find me. “They (also) tried to kidnap a neighbour but he managed to escape.”

The resident added that the separatist elements came to the area nightly, singing the anthem of their self-proclaimed “Ambazonia Republic” in front of French households.

The increasing number of incidents persuaded Edouard to move his family, first staying at a hotel before securing accommodation in another suburb.

On Church Street, a smart road in the town centre where stylish young people sat on cafe terraces drinking and laughing, French and English groups sat apart.

“Generally people mixed here. But because of the crisis there’s a climate of mistrust — the anglophones mistrust the francophones, and vice versa,” said Edouard.

“The current situation could deteriorate into something worse,” warned a member of a local community organisation who declined to be named.

Anglophones in Cameroon have long felt marginalised and have previously called for greater recognition with the more vocal among them advocating for the creation of an independent nation in the southwest and northwest.

– ‘They think we’re inadequate’ –

The separatist movement erupted into violence a year ago with hundreds killed in the conflict.

“(The crisis) has allowed anglophones to conclude that they are unable to have anything more to do with us because they think we’re inadequate,” said Danielle, who moved to Limbe in 2005, and lives with an anglophone.

But Lessly, one of the few anglophones willing to speak about the situation, said the violence engulfing Cameroon’s English areas has a number of origins.

“A typical anglophone citizen who you’d meet on the street sees the destruction and killing perpetrated by the army as acts perpetrated by francophones,” he said.

He conceded that the crisis has damaged relations between the English and French communities because many anglophones do not realise that “in that very army, there are English speakers”.

“Division isn’t good and complicates life for everyone — socially and economically,” added the young businessman.

The apparent separatist goal is to seize control of Limbe’s Sonara oil refinery — the country’s largest — where the majority of staff including the managing director are French-speaking.

The town is also home to an elite army rapid intervention force which is often spotted heading to or from inland flashpoints of separatist violence including Kumba and Mamfe.

Source: AFP