Cameroon is nervously awaiting the first anniversary on Monday of a declaration of independence by its English-speaking minority less than a week before the country plunges into presidential elections.

Attacks are occurring daily in the two regions that are home to this French-speaking country’s anglophones, and many say they are afraid.

In the worst-affected areas, some people have fled with whatever possessions they can carry. Others say they rarely venture out of their homes, fearing separatists as well as the security forces.

On October 1 2017, radicals declared the creation of the “Republic of Ambazonia,” covering two English-speaking regions incorporated into francophone Cameroon in 1961.

The declaration went largely unnoticed outside Cameroon, and “Ambazonia” — named after a bay at the mouth of the Douala River — has been recognised by no-one.

But the move marked the start of a crisis that has cast a shadow over the October 7 elections, in which 85-year-old president Paul Biya, who has ruled the country for 35 years, is seeking a seventh straight term in office.

“The army killed lots of people on October 1,” Monsignor Emmanuel Bushu, bishop of the Buea, capital of Southwest Region, said at the time.

“For nearly two weeks, they shot at people like you shoot at birds.”

Mounting toll

Biya’s crackdown coincided with a surge of bloody attacks by the separatists, gunning down troops and police and burning schools and other perceived symbols of the Cameroonian state.

At least 400 civilians have been killed this year, according to the International Crisis Group think-tank. The government says 109 members of the security forces have been killed since the end of 2017.

Atrocities have been committed on both sides, according to watchdogs.

“The brutal attacks against ordinary people and security forces are further proof of the horrific escalation of violence,” Amnesty International said on September 19.

According to UN figures, 246,000 people in the Southwest Region have fled their homes, and 25,000 have sought shelter in neighbouring Nigeria, many of them living from hand-to-mouth in the forests.

Estimates of displaced people in the neighbouring Northwest Region — the other restive anglophone region — are not available.

Map of Cameroon locating English-speaking regions and their capitals, Bamenda and Buea.

The government has imposed tight controls, including over the mainstream media, and both sides are fighting for public opinion in the domain of social media.

The economic damage, too, has been severe. The state-run palm oil company Pamol has deserted some of its plantations, and cocoa and coffee production has stopped because villages have abandoned their crops, the Cameroon NGO Human Is Right said in July.

The government has set up an emergency aid fund for the two regions, to which many Cameroonians have given generously.

Legacy of history

Around a fifth of Cameroon’s 22 million people are English-speaking. The legacy dates back to the colonial period.

Cameroon, once a German colony, was divided between Britain and France after World War I. The French colony gained independence in 1960, becoming Cameroon. The following year, the British-ruled Southern Cameroons was amalgamated into it, giving rise to the Northwest and Southwest regions.

But resentment at perceived discrimination at the hands of the francophone majority, especially in education and the judiciary, began to build.

Demands for greater autonomy grew but were always rebuffed by Biya, culminating in the October 1 declaration.

Shadow over elections

President Paul Biya, 85, has been head of state for 35 years. He has sternly rejected independence or a federal status for the two anglophone regions.

The upcoming elections, a symbol of national sovereignty, have placed the separatists and the authorities in a toe-to-toe fight over who controls the two restive regions.

Attacks on schools rose in September after the return of classes following the summer break. A 12-hour night-time curfew has been declared in the Northwest Region.

The separatists — known as the “Ambazonians” or “Amba Boys” — have vowed to prevent the elections from taking place.

“I’m afraid. I won’t turn out to vote,” said Elizabeth, who lives in the holiday resort of Limbe in the Southwest Region, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“I’m afraid of the Ambazonians but also of the police and military who kill… things could go very badly on polling day.”

Another voter, who gave her name as Ruth, said, “I won’t vote, and many people I know won’t be voting either, because of the threats of the Ambazonians.”

The government has declared that the poll will take place in all of the country’s 360 districts, although some ballot stations will be “relocated” to reduce the risk of attacks.

“I’m sure the elections will go ahead… but the turnout is likely to be low,” said a worker with an NGO which will be monitoring the ballot.

Culled from ModernGhana.Com

Separatists in Cameroon’s restive English speaking regions staged a prison break leading to the escape of about 70 prisoners, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

The incident took place in Wum, a town located north of the regional capital Bamenda. Witnesses say the preceding the prison break was exchange of gunfire at the town’s prison lasting several hours.

They added that the mastermind of the attack sustained gunshot wounds but was carried away by members of his team.

This becomes the second such incident in under two months. In late July 2018, over 160 inmates in the Ndop prisons were released after an attack by separatists.

The attackers who “fired from everywhere”, were able to “break the gates of the prison” before “setting fire to all the buildings,”he added, …

At the time, William Benedict Emvoutu Mbita, head of the department of Ngoketunjia where Ndop is located confirmed that some escapees had voluntarily returned and were due to be transferred to the regional capital, Bamenda.

The attackers who “fired from everywhere”, were able to “break the gates of the prison” before “setting fire to all the buildings,“he added, stressing that they had brought fuel to cause the fire.

Armed separatists since October last year have faced off with state security forces in an increasingly deteriorating security situation in the Anglophone regions – the North-West and South-West.

Source: Africa News

Three teenagers, including 6 women, were killed in a Cameroon government attack on Fako County in Southern Cameroons, witnesses told Cameroon Concord News on Monday. A council worker at the local mortuary in Buea reported seeing 14 dead bodies, including the three young boys and six women.

Several Southern Cameroonians were injured in the attack as forces loyal to the Biya regime in Yaounde continued to massacre innocent Ambazonian civilians. The Fako County is under siege from the Cameroon government forces blamed for thousands of civilian deaths over the past 2 years.

The Francophone dominated army surprise attack happened in the streets of Buea. The three teenagers were killed while traveling from their car wash. According to several witness accounts, the attack started when the ruling CPDM crime syndicate announced that the 85 year-old President Biya will kick off his campaign in Buea. Heavy and light caliber gunfire was heard for several hours.

The French Cameroun military targeted areas near the University of Buea and Mile 17 in Muea that is the trading settlement of several hundred Southern Cameroons inhabitants.

By Asu Vera Eyere and Sama Ernest

Scores of French Cameroun soldiers were killed and many others injured in an overnight attack by Ambazonian Restoration Forces in Bafut. Our chief intelligence officer in Bamenda reported that the onslaught against the Francophone government army soldiers was staged by Bafut 7 Kata Boys on Thursday.

A Cameroon government provincial security source who confirmed the news to us but sued for anonymity observed that troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde were returning from the Menchum County when the convoy of 8 trucks, an armoured vehicle and a caterpillar were ambushed at Mile 24.

We gathered that fierce clashes erupted when the Southern Cameroons militants attacked the army convoy. Late night reinforcement troops arrived the area but could go across as the Bafut 7 Kata Boys had destroyed the main bridge seen here on photo attached to this report.

The soldiers attempted to repel the attack and wounded some of the attackers, but their number is not known as the militants evacuated their casualties when they withdrew from the scene.

The rugged area leading to Wum has long been a hot bed for Southern Cameroons Resistance forces despite repeated operations by the French Cameroun security forces to hunt them down. Major Key settlements in Southern Cameroons are now without administrative heads.

By Asu Vera Eyere

Violence in Cameroon between English-speaking militants and the security forces of the francophone-led country is threatening to spiral out of control ahead of October elections.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in the past year by bloody clashes between Cameroonian soldiers and armed separatists calling for independence for roughly 5m citizens in the country’s English-speaking regions.

The violence across the country’s linguistic divide — which has its roots in colonialism — has turned into the greatest challenge faced by President Paul Biya, who hails from Cameroon’s francophone majority and has been in power for 36 years.

Hans De Marie Heungoup, central Africa senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, said: “We are not yet in a civil war, but all the ingredients for a potential civil war are already assembled.”

He cited the targeting of civilians, the administration’s efforts to encourage pro-government militias and the emergence of criminal gangs.

The election due on October 7, when 85-year old Mr Biya is seeking his seventh term in office, comes days after the anniversary of a government crackdown that left dozens of protesters dead last October, when secessionists symbolically proclaimed the independence of Ambazonia, as the envisioned anglophone state is called.

The crisis began in 2016 as the Biya administration accelerated policies that have marginalised English speakers and cracked down violently on peaceful protests against demands that French be spoken in schools and courts in anglophone regions.

Agbor Nkongho, a leader of the protest marches who was jailed for eight months, said: “After we were arrested, the movement went into the hands of radicals who were clamouring for a separate state. The situation has changed drastically . . . and tensions will only get worse as we approach October 7.”

Mr Ngongho said more English speakers had been persuaded to support what had been a minority secessionist movement because of extrajudicial killings, the arbitrary arrest and torture of journalists and civilians, and the blocking of internet access in anglophone regions last year.

The ICG estimates that soldiers have burnt at least 100 anglophone villages to the ground — part of a crackdown that has forced more than 21,000 people to flee into neighbouring Nigeria.

In the past year, the anglophone armed groups, directed from abroad by exiled Cameroonians in Europe and the US, have grown more brazen and violent, said Mr De Marie Heungoup. They are made up of between 1,000 and 3,000 men, most armed with rudimentary weapons such as machetes and hunting rifles, according to ICG.

Amnesty International said this week that around 400 civilians have been killed this year in the crisis, while at least 160 soldiers have died since 2016. The human rights group also said it had authenticated two videos showing someone who identified himself as a separatist holding the decapitated head of a Cameroonian officer.

“The situation is going to deteriorate further because [anglophone separatists] are going to use all means possible to prevent elections from taking place” in their region, says Elie Smith, a Cameroonian journalist. “And in retaliation the military will use brutal force.”

Jean de Dieu Momo, a Biya supporter and head of Les Patriotes Démocrates pour le Développement du Cameroun political party, said that anglophone grievances about marginalisation are legitimate, but added that so were those of pygmy tribesmen in the bush who were not taking up arms.

Mr de Dieu Momo said he supported anglophone efforts at reform within the Cameroonian state. But the men who took up arms for a separate state “are not political fighters fighting for the change of the state to federalism — they are terrorists”, he said. “They are taking money from the population, they are raping the women [and forcing] people to put the flag of Ambazonia on their door.”

In 1961 French Cameroun and the former British Southern Cameroons were unified, uneasily, in a federation that gave the anglophone regions autonomy. In 1972, Cameroon was “united”, effectively giving the francophone majority complete control. Since then, Anglophones have complained of being marginalised and oppressed.

Julius Nyugap, a member of Ambazonia’s self-proclaimed government, says the international organisations accusing separatists of human rights violations have bought “the narrative of the government”, which wants to paint them as terrorists. “Why would we kill the very people we are fighting for?” he says.

Mr Biya rules by decree, and has instituted anti-democratic policies abolishing term limits while allowing a façade of multi-party democracy that, critics charge, provides him cover with the international community, which has largely been silent about the anglophone crisis.

Cameroon is “an ‘electoral dictatorship’. . . so you will get the impression of a country where there are democratic freedoms”, says Kaw Wallah, an opposition politician who has called for an end to Mr Biya’s rule. But “any time the Biya regime feels threatened in any way . . . you can be arrested either as a journalist, as an opposition member, or as a civil society activist.”

Source: Financial Times

French Cameroun government officials say an estimated 400 civilians and 160 state security personnel have been killed in the protests in Southern Cameroons over the past two years. A figure highly contested by the Ambazonian Interim Government. The latest indication of worsening brutality is a video of separatists showing a security man’s decapitated head.

The activists in Southern Cameroons are demanding independence from Cameroon alleging marginalisation by the government of Paul Biya, which is largely French-speaking. English speakers constitute 20 percent of the 24 million-population.

“The situation in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon is becoming increasingly desperate with no one spared from the violence which is spiralling out of control,” said Samira Daoud, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for West and Central Africa.

Daoud said perpetrators from both sides had attacked and killed people or destroyed their properties but continue walking free. Early this month, armed separatists kidnapped seven students and the head of the Presbyterian Comprehensive Secondary School in the town of Bafut. They were released days later.

Last week, the militants attacked positions of soldiers stationed near the town of Buea, causing an intense exchange of fire between them and the security forces.

It is feared violence will worsen with the upcoming elections in Cameroon.

“We may well see an escalation in the number of security incidents and increased activity by armed separatists threatening to disrupt the electoral process at all costs,” Daoud said.

Polls are set for October 7.

The Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), the leading human rights organization working to realize human rights in Cameroon,  strongly condemns the decision by the government of President Paul Biya through its Regional Delegate of Transport in the Northwest Region, to issue a travel restriction among Anglophones in the North west region.

This policy amounts to nothing less than a xenophobic and counterproductive action by the government and it should be repealed immediately.

This tragic decision by the government violates the best traditions of Cameroon’s constitution as well as in direct contravention of international humanitarian and human rights laws. We implore President Paul Biya, and those around him, to consider the ramifications of the travel restrictions on Anglophones.

In a time when the country is faced with its worst crisis since independence many citizens and law enforcement officers are losing their lives, Cameroonians are looking to their government for many things including leadership, all-inclusive dialogue, guaranteeing their rights and ending the violence.

These kinds of action not only harm the future prospects of individuals and peace, but also diminish our own reputation and performance as an outward-looking community.

This policy by the government does not make Anglophone and Francophones safe; rather, it makes us less safe by breeding negative sentiments around the country, stifling opportunities, escalating violence, interfering with cross-cultural relationship building, and making it more difficult to provide assistance and protection to those who need it most especially the refugees I visited in Nigeria and Internally displace persons CHRDA tries to assist on a daily basis.

In the midst of an escalating war in the country, this is a significant setback for those who are obviously in need of protection and those who are finding peaceful solution to the crisis. The Cameroon government must live up to its international obligations and provide protection for those fleeing persecution and conflicts in the Anglophone region and not restrict travel.

We call on all Anglophones and Francophones in Cameroon and the international community to join us in speaking out against this hateful policy, which sends an official message of intolerance, undermines the Cameroonian people, and threatens the lives of thousands of people who desperately and urgently need sanctuary in our country—while doing nothing to bring peace to the Anglophone region.

Authorities in Cameroon’s North West region say they will not allow people without legitimate reasons to leave the area. A communique dated September 18 and signed by a regional delegate said the decision had been taken with stakeholders in the transport sector.

“I have the honour to inform the general public that as a measure to secure and protect those persons travelling out of the region, that henceforth, they will be required to provide additional information at their points of departure.

“In effect, they shall state the reason for their departure, the name of the receiver and his or her contact. Anybody who will not comply with this order shall have his or her journey cancelled, the statement added.

People in their hundreds were reported to be quitting the region as the Anglophone crisis continued to take a toll on lives and properties across the region.

The region together with the SouthWest constitutes the country’s minority Anglophone region which has been suffering a security crisis since last year.

Separatist groups are seeking independence from French-majority Cameroon after a series of peaceful protests against marginalization was clamped down by government forces. The separatists are seeking to establish the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Reported by Africa News

The deteriorating health condition of a Anglophone journalist jailed at the Kondengui maximum security prison in Yaounde has provoked anger and outrage among media men and women and the online community in Cameroon.

Pictures of Dzenyagha Thomas Awah Junior in his Kondengui cell emerged over the weekend showing the journalist in a dire condition which provoked widespread condemnation with some journalists launching the hashtag #FreeThomasAwah.

Arrested in Bamenda in January 2017, Thomas Awah, Publisher of the Aghem Voice was slammed an 11-year jail term for secession, amongst other charges on May 25, 2018.

The journalist who has a well-documented brain problem that has seen him undergo surgery on several occasions has always denied the charges and maintained he was arrested in the line on duty.

Several applications filed by his lawyer for a bail so he could undergo proper treatment have all been rejected as he languished in his cell.

Source: Journal du Cameroun