“Bread and sardine are finished. Hunger has struck. Douala in chaos. The people want their victory”. These were the words used by our senior political man to describe the demonstrations that started earlier today in Douala in French Cameroun

Hundreds of French Cameroonians held a scantily attended protest today in Douala to demand an end to Biya’s rule, but soldiers and elements of the gendarmerie dispersed them with tear gas and warning shots.

The Kamto Campaign had called for demonstrations to press the 85 year-old President Biya to respect the will of the people by handing power to the man widely believed to have won the October 7 presidential polls in Cameroon.

The Douala protest is the first after the Constitutional Council reportedly denied Prof Maurice Kamto’s apparent victory in a presidential election that was subsequently scuttled by the election body known as ELECAM.

But relatively few Francophones responded to the Kamto Campaign call, underscoring that, while the Biya regime is deeply unpopular, few French Cameroonians are ready to actively confront it. Many French Cameroonians are consumed by their daily struggle for survival amid Cameroon’s economic collapse.

The Biya Francophone government had banned today’s protests and troops heavily deployed around Douala and in the nation’s capital Yaounde to prevent them. An estimated 500 people, mostly young men, gathered around the Bonanjoh and Deido districts many carried anti-government placards and leaflets. But the police swept into the areas, firing tear gas canisters and warning shots into the air. No deaths or injuries were immediately reported.

The army also took to the streets in Yaounde, but the capital city, remained calm.

By Asu Vera Eyere and Rita Akana

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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The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

Cameroon’s military on Thursday said “many have been killed” in fighting with Anglophone separatists after launching attacks the day after President Paul Biya was declared the winner of a seventh term.

Biya has called the separatists “terrorists,” and fighting since last year has killed hundreds of people.

The military launched simultaneous attacks on Tuesday against at least seven suspected training grounds in the Northwest region, with fighting reported in villages in Bui, Mezam, Donga Mantung and Ngoketungia administrative areas, authorities and residents said.

An Associated Press reporter saw at least 18 corpses. Ngarum resident Tata Leslie said he counted 15 dead.

“The military attacked on the early hours of Tuesday and the fighting continued for over 24 hours,” he said.

Leslie said there were fears that residents have been caught up in the killings and arrests. “The military mounted checkpoints and controlled everyone coming in or going out. Many people have escaped to the bushes,” he said.

Gen. Agha Robinson, who commanded the troops staging the raids, said “many have been killed” but did not give details. The military freed some hostages and seized weapons and motorcycles, he said.

Local media reported that at least 30 suspected armed fighters were killed along with an unknown number of soldiers. Many villages were deserted, with many houses torched.

Residents accused the military of burning homes.

“We have to free the population from the bondage and pain inflicted on them by the armed gangs. Our people cannot continue to live in fear,” Northwest regional Governor said.

Fighting between the military and separatists began last year when the government clamped down on peaceful demonstrations in Anglophone regions by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they called marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority.

Armed factions emerged after the government crackdown and have been using violence to push for independence.

Source: AP

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

Swift BIC BARC GB22XX

SORT CODE 20-49-11, ACCOUNT NUMBER – 03913015 Barclay PLC, UK

The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

Great sons and daughters of Manyu:

I am honored to address you all today, October 24^rd, 2018, on behalf of the Manyu Global Voice.

I want to begin by inviting you to a Manyu Global Voice worldwide zoom conference slated for Sunday, October 28^th, at 7 PM Ambazonia Time. It is imperative that we have this meeting.

Beloved Manyu people, the war waged against Southern Cameroonians by the soulless dictator, Paul Biya, continues to escalade. Our young people are dying at an alarming rate.In some areas, Biya’s terrorist soldiers have been seen rounding up peace loving citizens of Southern Cameroons going about their usual business, and summarily execute them! It is painful to note that thousands of our people— including the young, old, pregnant, wounded and feeble, have been forced into exile to neighboring Nigeria, where they are living under very sub human and appalling conditions. The number of the internally displaced is huge, and continues to rise steadily! Entire villages have been wiped out. In fact there is hardly any corner of our homeland that has not seen houses completely burnt down;girls & women savagely raped;businesses and homes ransacked;and valuables looted.

Beloved citizens of Manyu, our land has been utterly defiled and turned upside down. Our culture too, especially the revered Ekpe, has been desecrated — all for the political gain of a few! The spilled blood of our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, wives and children….our heroes, is so voluminous that it is now flooding our land, drenching the sacred remains of our ancestors. As Biya’s men kill our people, so too do they destroy our forests, illegally exploiting timber and other resources, with reckless abandon.

Our ancestors are definitely turning in their graves, as they hear the cries and wailings of our tortured brothers and sisters. I can hear our people yelling for help — the wounded, the pregnant, the sick, the hungry, the abandoned, the helpless! Manyu, where are you? Must all die before we act, I ask?

Doing nothing is not an option. But approaching this existential threat in a haphazard, amateurish and parochial manner as we see today is even worse, as it only puts more lives in harm’s way,tears us apart, and emboldens our common enemy. The best approach, therefore, is for us to confront this monster head on, from a united front and well organized front. There is dire need for us, as a people, to rise up to this challenge by organizing ourselves in a way that would project strength in terms of numbers, resources, strategies and tactics in an unprecedented manner. Experience has shown that this can best be achieved from the grassroots upwards, and not the other way round.

We have an elaborate plan. This plan is proposing that Manyu citizens worldwide should set up local chapters of Manyu Global Voice in every country and continent, doing well to reflect all our subdivisions in their respective leadership structures. Also, Market women, Okada Riders, Manyu River Beach Workers, including Bolo and Bacha boys, should set up their own unions…, just like drivers, teachers, healthcare workers, engineers, and other professional and vocational groups. A central coordinating body, the Manyu Global Voice Council, with members drawn from country chapters as above, will be constituted. This Council will be headed by a Chairman, who will liaise and work closely with the Interim Government (IG), and the ASC during the entire course of our revolution.

When we eventually liberate our land, the PEOPLE OF MANYU, both home based and those in the Diaspora, will then determine what form of government they would want for themselves. After deciding on this, the next logical step would be for the people to choose their leaders, in a democratic and all-inclusive manner. I want to emphasize that our goal at this time is to make sure this revolution succeeds, and our abducted and incarcerated leaders, including Sisiku Ayuk Tabe Julius are freed, and be part of the rebuilding process of our homeland.  

That is why I am seizing this opportunity to INVITE all SONS and DAUGHTERS of the great land of MANYU to a Manyu Global Voice world- wide zoom conference slated for Sunday, October 28^th, at 7 PM Ambazonia Time. The main item on the agenda of this meeting is for us to deliberate on the above proposals. Dial in details will be made available in due cause. Please take this time to study our proposal and come up with your own ideas. We need your ideas; and we want to hear from you.

This address will not be complete, if I do not openly appreciate the fact that many individuals, Manyu and non-Manyu,  have been standing up to lend consoling voices and/or donate money and other items to the cause of our suffering siblings back home. Some have made, and continue to make enormous financial and other contributions to our people, since the onset of these hostilities unleashed on us by Mr. Biya and his surrogates. Some have chosen to do so, privately and quietly. I thank them for being their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers during these very trying times.

Others have gone the extra mile of putting their lives on the line to publicly and fearlessly advocate for the oppressed, voiceless, hunted and the needy. I dove my hat for you, beloved Manyu politico-social activists, journalists, philanthropists and social media bloggers. I want to sincerely thank the likes of my dear friend, SessekuShey Christmas AtemEbini;my brothers,Mr. Soter Agbaw-Ebai,Mr. Ayah Abineh, Mr. Eric Tataw, Mr. Fritz Takang;our father Pa Sammy Arreymbi, and others who have been fearless in telling our story as it is to the world, thus helping to expose the excesses and evil of the Biya regime, shaming our greedy & heartless politicians, and at the same time, motivating our people to keep the struggle going. Manyu is proud of you.

I also wish to thank our brothers and sisters who are working tirelessly, day and night, to provide that much needed health care assistance to our ground Zero, and Ground One wounded, the sick and the pregnant.  Thank you, respected members and leaders of the Manyu Health Initiative and the Manyu Capital Ventures, subsidiaries of the Manyu Advisory Committee(MAC) and the Manyu Global Voice, for the excellent work you do, quietly, to preserve the lives of our people.I am not leaving out all the other groups and organizations working hard to alleviate the sufferings of our people. We appreciate every good work you do. May God reward you all abundantly!

Of course, our real heroes are the young men and women who have been chased away and forced to take refuge in the bushes and jungles by marauding killer squads of the Biya regime. Thank you for defending our land, our people and property. You are the future of Manyu, and your names will be written on marble, when freedom eventually comes, not too long from now. I advise that you remain disciplined and be your brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. I do urge you to avoid all forms of vandalism, extortion, and other acts that may cast you in negative light and cause you to lose respect and favor from the community that ardors you.

My people, I call upon all of us to come together under the one umbrella, so we can put our limited resources together, fight together and liberate our people first. We cannot talk about politics and formation of government on the internet and in the middle of a war, when we are losing our brothers and sisters daily at an alarming rate. Even our not too literate parents know the folly of counting their chicken before they are hatched. We should honor our fallen heroes by coming together to fight our common enemy.

My special thanks to all the hardworking men and women of MAC, members and administrators of Manyu Global Voice, and all groups working to liberate Manyu and preserve her people and resources.

Please remember to join the Manyu Global Voice zoom teleconference on Sunday, October 28, 2018, at 7 PM Ambazonia time.

Long Live Manyu

Sesseku Dr. Peter Ako

Chairman/Spokesperson

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

Swift BIC BARC GB22XX

SORT CODE 20-49-11, ACCOUNT NUMBER – 03913015 Barclay PLC, UK

The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

Cameroonian authorities announced this week that President Paul Biya had been reelected — again. Biya has ruled the country since 1982, making him the second-longest-serving president in Africa. At 85 years old, he’s also the continent’s oldest.

But this year’s election, held on Oct. 7, took place in unusual circumstances: Since 2016, the central African country, a key U.S. security partner, has been teetering dangerously on the brink of civil war between English-speaking separatists and its government, dominated by French speakers.

Elite circles in Cameroon are largely controlled by Francophones, while Anglophones are routinely overlooked for top ministerial jobs. There have been complaints about such marginalization for decades, but unrest broke out in late 2016 after Anglophone citizens complained that more and more Francophone teachers and judges were being sent to teach in their schools and preside in their courts.

The military responded violently to Anglophone protests, killing some demonstrators and rounding up others. The harsh reprisals only enraged Anglophones, who have given growing support to an armed movement trying to create an English-speaking breakaway state called Ambazonia.

People protest Cameroonian President Paul Biya near the White House on Monday. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

In September, Amnesty International reported 160 members of Cameroon’s security forces had been killed by armed separatists since the conflict began. Around 400 civilians have been killed over the past year by armed groups on both sides of the conflict, and schools have become a common target.

That isn’t the only crisis Cameroon has on its hands. For years now, the country’s Far North region has struggled to contain the threat of Boko Haram, the Islamist group that has terrorized the area and displaced many Cameroonians. About 300 U.S. soldiers are on the ground there to aid Cameroon in its anti-extremist operations.

As the International Crisis Group said in a report before the Oct. 7 election, “the political climate is tense, the economy shaky and much of the country insecure, torn between Boko Haram in the Far North and a conflict in the Anglophone regions in the Northwest and Southwest.”

Biya is one of a number of African leaders who have found ways to cement their hold on power even as their countries spiral into unrest. In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni has been in power since 1985 — and last year, the Ugandan parliament repealed a presidential age limit that would have prevented the aging leader from running for reelection. In Burundi in 2015, President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term that his opponents insisted was unconstitutional, sparking unrest that displaced hundreds of thousands of people and left many others dead.

Aside from the tension surrounding the election in Cameroon, the validity of the vote itself appears suspect. This week, Cameroon’s constitutional council said voter turnout was at 54 percent. But between the violence and the displacement it caused, it’s unlikely that so many voters were able to make it to the polls.

There’s also suspicion of fraud about the votes that were cast. According to the official tally, Biya took 71 percent of the vote and even did well in some Anglophone areas where he has little support. Maurice Kamto, the next-closest runner-up, took only 14 percent of the vote.

Even Cameroon’s state-run television channel found itself in an awkward position after reporting Transparency International was in the country observing the elections — a claim the organization later refuted. “A deliberate attempt to impersonate Transparency International or knowingly portray non-affiliated individuals as employees of the anti-corruption watchdog is completely unacceptable,” the watchdog group said in a statement.

All of this has reinforced suspicions that the vote was rigged from the get-go. Kamto said in a statement that he would “solemnly and categorically reject these manufactured results and refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the Head of State.”

“We will use all means of law to restore the truth of the ballot box,” he said.

The United States considers Cameroon an important partner in a somewhat unstable region, and State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert congratulated Cameroon after the vote on its “largely peaceful elections,” while noting that there “were a number of irregularities prior to, during, and after” the vote.

The incident may be a harbinger of what’s to come: At least 160,000 people are displaced within the country and tens of thousands of others have fled into neighboring Nigeria. Frustrations are now mounting across the country, and the International Crisis Group warned in a report that “ordinary people’s opinions are increasingly radical.”

Biya manages to avoid dipping his toes too much in any of the chaos unfolding around him — an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project earlier this year found he has spent about 4½ years of his time in office abroad on “private trips.” After the election results were announced, he simply tweeted: “Thank you for your renewed and large confidence. Let us now join in taking up, together, the challenges that confront us.”

Those challenges could soon become larger than he’s able to tackle.

Culled from The Washington Post

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

Swift BIC BARC GB22XX

SORT CODE 20-49-11, ACCOUNT NUMBER – 03913015 Barclay PLC, UK

The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

A Cameroon court has sentenced former opposition presidential candidate and anti-corruption campaigner Akere Muna to a three-year suspended sentence on forgery charges.

His sentencing Tuesday came a day after the West African country’s constitutional council announced the results of an election handing President Paul Biya a seventh term in power.

The Yaounde tribunal sentenced Muna to three years in prison suspended for five years, in a case involving forgery of his family’s inheritance, according to a copy of the ruling obtained on Wednesday.

The verdict could still be overturned by an appeals court and by the Supreme Court.

The judgement follows a case brought by Muna’s younger sister and a former minister, Ama Tutu Muna, who accused him of mismanaging the family inheritance.

Akere, a former senior lawyer and once vice president of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, this month withdraw his candidacy in the presidential election in favour of another contender, Maurice Kamto.

Kamto came second in the presidential election with 14.23 percent of the vote.

Source: (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.

Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Banking IBAN: GB51 BARC 2049 1103 9130 15

Swift BIC BARC GB22XX

SORT CODE 20-49-11, ACCOUNT NUMBER – 03913015 Barclay PLC, UK

The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

Cameroon has invited bids to build a new house for the president of the Constitutional Council, two days after the council announced the re-election of long-time president, Paul Biya.

The $475,000 (£370,000) mansion is in an upmarket neighbourhood of Yaoundé.

Last week, the body dismissed 18 opposition petitions against the running of the elections.

During the hearing, an opposition lawyer accused Judge Clement Atangana of supporting the president.

His wife is an MP for the ruling party but Justice Atangana denied any bias and said all his judgements were based on the law.

While the tender indicates that the building will be a public structure, given the timing, many Cameroonians view this as being specifically for Justice Atangana, reports the BBC’s Ngala Killian Chimtom in Yaoundé.

The BBC has approached both Justice Atangana and the government for comment, but neither have responded.

What happened in the election?

Mr Biya won a seventh term with 71.3% of the vote in the 7 October election.

He has been in power since 1982.

Opposition candidate Maurice Kamto, who came second with just 14% of the votes, continues to dispute the official results, alleging widespread fraud.

The election was also marred by violence especially in the two English-speaking provinces which have been hit by more than a year of violent protests and attacks by separatist rebels which have left hundreds dead.

Voter turnout in the country’s two Anglophone regions – North West and South West – was as low as 5%, according to the International Crisis Group.

Official figures recorded an almost 16% turnout in the South-West region.

The formation of the Constitutional Council was enshrined in the 1996 constitution, but its 11 members were only appointed, for a six-year renewable term, by Mr Biya in February.

The team’s first public function was adjudicating the results of the October presidential election.

Culled from the BBC

CPDM Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, has become very bitter after he learned that his party comrades had a party at their party headquarters in Yaounde last Friday when the Constitutional Council President, Clement Atangana, handed the people’s victory to the CPDM candidate, Paul Biya, who neither campaigned nor addressed the nation during the campaign.

Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngolle who had spent most of his time at the Constitutional Council hearing throughout the week only learned from unofficial sources that there was a huge party in which his comrades were having a good time after successfully stealing the people’s victory at the party headquarters.

The bitter professor was so disappointed and even pointed out that whenever it came to working, he would be asked to be there for the party and whenever there was food and drinks, he would be sidelined or simply made to look foolish. He said he was tired of being humiliated by his peers of Beti extraction and that if not given a position in government, he would just stay in his own corner of the world.

“I think they think that I am their dunce. When it comes to work they will make sure I am there all day, but when the fruits of our labor are there, they will quietly leave me in my little corner as if I don’t matter. I wish they could know what risks I have taken just to make sure Mr. Biya is given the votes he has today. If they think I am not useful, let them head to the southwest region to face those violent Amba boys. These are people can chop off my head if they lay their hands on me. I have been exiled by my own people and now the people in Yaounde are behaving as if I don’t count,” the frustrated professor is alleged to have said.

Our source added that the cash-strapped professor was helpless, adding that he had not got alternatives. He stressed that like every Cameroonian, he has his bills to pay and given his involvement in some shady deals while he was in government, it is very unlikely that Prof. Ngolle Ngolle will walk away from the ruling CPDM.

“He is stuck with that party. He is cash-strapped and cannot survive without the CPDM. The professor is in debt right up to his eyeballs and if he walks away from the CPDM, he will be walked straight to Kondengui, the country’s maximum security jail located on the outskirts of the city,” our source said.

A native of the Southwest, Prof. Ngolle Ngolle has been working very hard to get a place in government before, during and after the rigged presidential poll. Prof. Ngolle Ngolle has been very desperate ever since he was kicked out of government a few years ago. His desperation was noticed during the presidential election campaign during which he said his party members should employ spiritual and supernatural means just to gain the support they needed to return his party candidate, Paul Biya, to power.

It should be recalled Prof. Ngolle Ngolle has been exiled from the Southwest region and he is among those who have been earmarked for killing if they returned to the region. Others from the region who are also facing the death penalty include, Senator Tabe-tando, Minister Victor Mengot Arrey, former prime minister Peter Mafany Musonge, Member of Parliament Okpu, former minister Ogork Ntui, Mayor Patrick Ekema, Prof. Etchu George, Minister Dion Ngute and all seating CPDM parliamentarians and senators. They were found guilty of treason by the Southern Cameroons Supreme Court.

It should be stressed that Senator Tabe-tando, Minister Victor Mengot Arrey and Prof. Echu George missed death by the skin of their teeth on October 7, 2018 as they defied Ambazonian orders to vote for their party in Mamfe.  

It should also be pointed out that most chiefs in the region have been chased away from their areas of jurisdiction. According to a source close to the Ambazonian fighters, all the chiefs who have been found guilty of working against the people’s interest have been handed a lesser charge and if arrested will have to spend a long time in an Ambazonian environment-friendly jail.

 By George Esame and Ernest Sama in Yaounde

Gunmen have abducted six children from a school in Bamenda, the capital of the northwestern, English-speaking Northwest region of Cameroon, a teacher there told AFP. “People attacked the high school yesterday (Friday) at 11:00 am (1000 GMT),” a teacher in Bamenda told AFP. “Six pupils have been abducted.”

The information was confirmed by a source close to the security services in Bamenda. Local media reports said one of the six had managed to escape, but that information has not yet been independently confirmed. Cameroon’s two anglophone regions in the west of Cameroon are the site of an armed separatist uprising, where the separatists have called for a boycott of the schools. They argue the French-language education system penalises English-speaking students.

Already, since the start of the new term in September, insurgents have killed one school director, mutilated a teacher and attacked several high schools. The results of the country’s presidential election, which took place on October 7, are still to be announced, but the incumbent, Paul Biya, ran for a seventh term in office.

Biya, 85, has refused to enter into dialogue with the separatists and at the beginning of the year launched a military crackdown in the regions.

AFP

Anglophone separatists have torched the home of Cameroon’s veteran opposition leader and kidnapped his sister, his lawyers said on Thursday.

The two incidents, which took place Wednesday, targeted Ni John Fru Ndi who heads the Social Democratic Front and comes from Cameroon’s troubled anglophone west.

Separatists “burnt (Fru Ndi’s) house” in the North-West, said lawyer Francis Sama, referring to one of Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions which have been hit by almost daily unrest that has left at least 400 dead this year.

“They kidnapped his younger sister,” he said at a hearing before the Constitutional Court, without giving further detail on either incident.

His remarks were made during a hearing at which three opposition candidates asked for the contested October 7 presidential election be annulled on grounds of massive fraud.

Fru Ndi has spent the past quarter of a century in opposition as head of SDF which he founded in 1990.

But although he ran for the presidency three times, Fru Ndi stood aside this time, letting his deputy Joshua Osih join the race against President Paul Biya who has ruled Cameroon for 36 years.

Although Fru Ndi has long opposed Biya’s rule, the separatists see him as a “traitor” because he is in favour of returning to a federalist solution in Cameroon, while they are fighting for the creation of an independent anglophone state, Sama said.

Yaounde is firmly opposed to any return to federalism.

– Cancel the vote –

Separatist activists had called for a boycott of the election, but SDF decided to run.

In a separate incident, the SDF said Fru Ndi’s driver had been shot at by the security forces after dropping the party leader home at the weekend. Without giving further details, they said he was “out of danger”.

The political crisis in the English-speaking west of this Francophone country erupted in 2016 and deteriorated into an armed separatist uprising last year which prompted a retaliatory crackdown by the security forces.

Following the election, SDF’s Osih asked the court to scrap the ballot because “there was no presidential election” in the English-speaking regions where voting was disrupted and turnout was below five percent, the ICG think tank said.

Two other opposition candidates also joined the petition — Maurice Kamto of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon and Cabral Libii, a TV news analyst and at 38, the election’s youngest candidate.

Libii’s request was dismissed as inadmissible, but the court has yet to respond to the other two petitions.

Source: AFP