Cyprain fled his home when separatist fighters in Cameroon’s Northwest region threatened to kill him after he served government soldiers at his roadside bar. He’s one of a growing number of civilians trapped between the army and roaming gangs of English-speaking insurgents fighting to break away from the majority-Francophone nation.

The conflict has decimated the local economy in the conflict zone, and according to the United Nations, left hundreds of people dead and displaced about 437,000 people. “The military burn houses, destroys, loots property and kills citizens,” Cyprain, 41, said on condition that his surname not be used out fear for his safety during an interview in the port city of Douala, where he now stays with relatives.

“Separatist fighters attack, kidnap and even kill people they suspect are their enemies.” There’s no end in sight to a conflict that started in late 2016 with peaceful protests against the dominance of the French language in schools and courtrooms of the Northwest and Southwest regions, where most people speak English.

President Paul Biya, 85, said on Twitter last week he’ll order the defense forces to “neutralize” all fighters who don’t lay down their weapons, a warning he first gave in his traditional year-end speech. Africa’s second-longest serving head of state, Biya extended his more than three-decade rule in the central African nation by winning disputed presidential elections in October.

Gruesome Images

While the government has blocked journalists from visiting the regions independently, gruesome images appear almost daily on social media. In a recent incident, a photo emerged of the head of a decapitated soldier that was left in the middle of a road in the Northwest’s regional capital, Bamenda, by suspected insurgents.

“The army hasn’t been able to take back control of rural areas, and there’s an increasing rivalry between separatist militia that fight each other over leadership and territory,” said Hans De Marie Heungoup, an analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. “The roads are either controlled by separatists or by defense forces. The population is suffering harassment from both sides.”

That’s isolated the area from the rest of oil-dependent Cameroon, which is a key regional hub, with roads and ports that are vital for landlocked neighbours including Chad and Central African Republic.

Agricultural Crisis

Cameroon’s top state-owned agribusiness said this week it has lost 35 billion CFA francs ($61 million) as a result of the crisis and more than half of its 22,000 employees are unable to work. The Cameroon Development Corp.’s three main crops — palm oil, rubber and bananas — have dropped significantly and large swathes of its farmland in the two Anglophone regions have been completely destroyed, General Manager Franklin Njie said.

The roots of the crisis date to the decision by the colonial powers to split the nation after World War I into a French-run zone and a smaller, British-controlled area. Since they were unified in 1961, the English-speaking minority, about a fifth of the population, has complained they don’t have equal job and educational opportunities as the French speaking majority.

Cameroon’s military has been accused of abuses including summary executions and raiding villages by advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Separatists have killed more than 160 police and military officials, according to the government, and have filmed themselves on mobile phones torturing village chiefs they accuse of collaborating with the authorities.

Army Abuses

The head of communication of the defense ministry, Didier Badjeck, rejected allegations from residents that the army was responsible for abuses and has dismissed reports that the military has set houses ablaze in the two restive regions as untrue.

“There is a lot of fake news on social media on this crisis,” he said by phone.

While Biya initially ignored the crisis, he has pledged to create a committee to disarm and reintegrate fighters. The decision triggered a spike in violence in the two regions, fueling clashes between separatists and defense forces.

“The government in Yaounde has taken a few measures but it hasn’t fundamentally addressed the root causes of the crisis and remains opposed to an inclusive dialog,” Heungoup said.  The unrest also risks spilling further into Cameroon’s eight French-speaking regions.

About 300 armed men swarmed into the town of Bangourain on Dec. 23 and set houses ablaze in what was the biggest attack in French-speaking territory since the conflict began.

The incident triggered such angry reactions on social media from Cameroonians that the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa issued a statement urging Francophones and Anglophones to “exercise restraint and refrain from hate speech and retaliation against one another.”

Among the thousands of people who’ve recently fled to French-speaking areas is Killian, a 41-year-old carpenter who asked not to be identified by his surname for fear of reprisals. He said he escaped as the military burned down his home and dozens of others in the town of Kumbo in the Northwest.

“I barely escaped with my dear life,” he said. “I hope my wife and my two children are alive.”

Source: Bloomberg

The Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC) has denounced the arrest of its leaders including the National Chairman, Prof Maurice Kamto. The man widely believed to have won the October 7 presidential election was arrested on Monday in Douala with some of the members of the National Executive Committee of his party.

Cameroon Concord News understands the President-elect was presiding over a political bureau meeting with members of his executive council including Christian Penda Ekoka, Albert Dzongang and Alain Fogué Tedom.

Prof Maurice Kamto’s arrest follows that of his campaign manager Paul Eric Kingue and Cameroonian musician turned activist Gaston Serval ABE popularly known as (Valsero) that was carried out two days ago. Local media sources have also reported that several other activists have been arrested.

Prof Kamto and his top aides are currently being held in custody at the Yaoundé judicial police post in connection with the vandalism in the Cameroon embassies in France and Germany. Barrister Akere Muna who was one of the presidential candidates of the 7 October 2018 polls has condemned the arrest and demanded their immediate release.

By Rita Akana

While Sudan hosted a new round of Central African Republic (C.A.R.) peace talks this week (Thursday, Jan. 24), Cameroon’s military was announcing new troop deployments to contain spillover from fighting inside C.A.R.’s border.

In Bossangoa, the capital of Ouham, more than 200 people came to hear Gaston Guella, an official of the Bossangoa council in the Ouham prefecture in western C.A.R., assure them in the Sango language that forces of the Multi-Dimensional United Nations Peacekeeping Operation in Central Africa (MINUSCA) would track down a group of armed men that attacked their city Friday night.

Bossangoa Mayor Pierre Denamge said Friday’s attack, which residents said left six people wounded and caused many to flee their homes for safety, indicates the population and peacekeeping forces should remain on high alert. The town has not had an attack in the past six weeks, and Denamge credited Cameroonian troops, who constitute the bulk of the U.N. peacekeeping force, saying they are doing a good job.

He says the people of C.A.R. are satisfied with the work done by the Cameroon military, especially as villagers can continue farming, fishing and hunting without fear of harassment, and traders can go to their shops because they know they have protection from the troops under the U.N. peacekeeping mission. He said everyone is happy that peace is returning and chaos is being reduced.

However, 40-year-old cattle rancher Ahmed Mahmoudou said the magnitude of the attack indicates the armed rebels are not ready to lay down their weapons.

He says the population was helpless and running in all directions when indiscriminate and heavy shooting began at the village’s Catholic church. He says members of his self-defense group decided to withdraw and alert the military because they could tell the attackers were more heavily armed.

Many people have fled the area since 2013, and deserted streets and burned roofs are a stark reminder of the violence the Central African town had witnessed before the arrival of the U.N. troops.

U.S. citizen Kenneth Gluck, the U.N.’s deputy special representative and deputy head of MINUSCA, says if the stability that has been established since last year continues, refugees and internally displaced persons can start to return to the western part of the country.

“This is exactly the part the country where we have seen the greatest progress toward peace and stability, and in great part because of the efforts of the Cameroonian soldiers and officers and policemen,” Gluck said. “We see in the west of the country a real progress toward stabilization, which should allow during 2019 the gradual return of refugees and displaced persons.”

Since 2013, thousands have been killed in C.A.R., and a quarter of the population of 4.5 million people has fled their homes.

Peace talks in Khartoum

Last Thursday, peace talks to end chronic violence in the Central African Republic began in Khartoum, with representatives of the government and 14 armed groups in attendance, according to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the C.A.R.

The U.N. peace mission is made up of more than 13,000 troops and police, and Cameroon contributes more than 1,000 troops.

Other pockets around the country are held by militias who say they are defenders of a particular community or religious group, but they often fight over mineral wealth.

The conflict began in 2013 when a mainly Muslim rebel movement called the Seleka overthrew President Francois Bozize, a Christian. That move triggered the rise of a predominantly Christian militia called the anti-Balaka.

Border deployment

Cameroon’s military sings as it also deploys to Garoua Boulay, the border town with C.A.R. The soldiers say that besides fighting to bring peace to C.A.R., they also must fight to stop the spillover of the crisis from neighboring countries, including the robberies and kidnappings that are on the rise. Armed groups from the C.A.R. have been stealing supplies and taking dozens of people hostage for ransom.

Cameroon also is mobilizing troops along the country’s northern border with Nigeria to fight Boko Haram terrorists, and in the western English-speaking regions where separatists have been fighting to create an English-speaking state. The military has not given any official announcement, but it is believed both their resources and military are already stretched.

VOA

Cameroon security officials in the Northern Zone of Southern Cameroons have confirmed the killing of a Colonel in Kumbo, Bui County.  While confirming the incident that led to the killing of Colonel Yaouba Ousmanou, the Biya regime denied that Francophone soldiers invaded and set ablaze houses in Bui.

The late Colonel Yaouba Ousmanou was the commander of the 3^rd Amphibian Battalion of the Rapid Intervention Force in Limbe and had been deployed by Yaounde to Kumbo to help crush Ambazonian Restoration Forces.

“We were told of the killing of a Colonel in Kumbo. He was in uniform and coming from Limbe” our source in the North West governor’s office hinted.

By Sama Ernest

Cameroon is struggling to get humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of people who fled areas of separatist unrest, some of them trapped by the fighting. Meanwhile, authorities’ calls for separatists to disarm and be pardoned are failing as rehabilitation centers remain empty.

A group of twelve kids gather water in the early morning hours in Cameroon’s capital.

Forty-five-year old Gwendoline Ndum took in the children a few weeks ago after they fled her home town of Mbengwi.

Many of the kids had walked for days in the bush to escape fighting between Cameroon security and anglophone separatists.

Ndum says some of the children can’t find their parents, and she couldn’t let them live on the streets, but the burden is becoming too much.

She says she can no longer afford to pay the water and electricity bills or buy chicken, meat or fish. A 50-kilogram bag of rice hardly lasts for two weeks, says Ndum, because they eat only rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Cameroon’s government this week said it was assisting more than 60,000 internally displaced people in the separatist areas – the English-speaking northwest and southwest.

But the United Nations estimates that over 430,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.

Cameroon authorities say they are unable to reach most of the displaced in need because many have fled to remote areas and are trapped by ongoing fighting.

Most independent help is limited to government-controlled areas.

A woman prays for peace as about a hundred displaced people help the aid group Voice of the Voiceless collect donations of food, clothing, and bedding.

The group’s Christian Chindo Ngong says the displaced are helping each other because they know what it’s like to have nothing. He says Cameroon’s government must also do more to help – it should end the conflict.

“The government should listen to the people, organize a dialogue, I mean an inclusive dialogue, so that we can see the end of this thing. Because no matter what we give the people, it can never make them happy. The only happiness that these people can achieve is to see their homes again.”

Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji says rehabilitation centers set up for separatists who agree to disarm and be pardoned had opened their doors and were waiting.

“We have to respect the instructions from President Paul Biya that when you lay down your weapons, you are taken to the centers, you are provided health facilities, you have psychologists who are there to start educating the population, and we have training facilities in those centers.”

But so far, not a single rebel has taken up the offer. The rehabilitation centers in the English-speaking southwestern town of Buea and in the capital Yaounde are empty.

In a WhatsApp interview with VOA, separatist fighter Edward Ngafin – who refused to say where he was – described the rehab centers as a trap.

He says he will not go to a government rehabilitation center and can never advise any separatist fighter to listen to any promise made by the government of Cameroon. Ngafin says he does not understand how a government that he describes as always tormenting English-speakers will suddenly claim that it cares and that it will recruit everyone.

Cameroon’s separatist conflict broke out in 2017 amid protests against Francophone domination in English-speaking regions. Some took up arms and declared they would become an independent nation called Ambazonia.

President Biya sent in the military and vowed to crush all those who refuse to disarm, saying the country’s unity cannot be negotiated.

VOA