This Christmas, both Christians and Muslims are praying for peace to return to Cameroon. Until a few years ago, the country never experienced serious violence or unrest; but, the Boko Haram insurgency in the north, the spillover of violence from the Central African Republic and the turmoil in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions have made life difficult for many.

Thirty youths representing churches and mosques are roaming the streets of Cameroon’s capital, urging everyone to pray that peace returns to the trouble spots of this central African state.

Among the singers is Bertrand Bayaga of the Full Gospel mission. He says he does not want more bloodshed in Cameroon.

Bayaga says he is praying for the government to be tactful and tolerant in finding solutions to all problems, because he does not want the country that their forefathers shed their blood for, to achieve its independence and unity, to be divided.

A nationwide prayer campaign was organized by pastor Jean Libom Li Likeng of the evangelical church of Cameroon.

The pastor says he organized the prayers to call on God to urgently come to the help of the Cameroon nation. He says through the massive participation and prayer he witnessed, he is satisfied that the country’s elite and people of God have understood that God is calling them to contribute in bringing peace to Cameroon.

Peace under attack

FILE – Christians breaking fast wtih Muslims at a mosque in Yaounde.

At the Yaounde central mosque, Imam Oumarou Issa says he is respecting the call for prayer because peace is under attack.

“Every one of us must apply the command of the almighty God to live in peace, in harmony with the other people everywhere,” he said. “We are and we must be, all of us, without any distinction, ambassadors of peace.”

Cameroon had not experienced any major challenges for decades. In the past few years, however, it has been enveloped by the bloody Boko Haram insurgency in the north, incursions from armed groups based in the C.A.R. and calls for secession from two English-speaking regions where many feel ignored by the country’s French-speaking majority.

FILE – A still image taken from a video shot on Oct. 1, 2017, shows protesters waving Ambazonian flags in front of a road block in the English-speaking city of Bamenda, Cameroon.

Peter Ndzelen, who attended Christmas Day services at the Yaounde cathedral, says he especially hopes the government will engage in sincere dialogue with the secessionists.

“It is good to bring people together, [for them to] express your [their] minds, bring the advantages and disadvantages of one system [of government] or the other and you talk and agree. It is not a taboo. Do not think that the person who is claiming independence or anything is somebody who cannot even change his mind or sit at the table and talk,” he said.

Cameroon is due to hold parliamentary and presidential elections in 2018, with longtime President Paul Biya expected to seek a seventh term.

Source: VOA

Of the 238.910 billion CFA francs accorded the Ministry of Defense during the recent controversial budgetary session of the National Assembly, 124.212 billion CFA francs will be spent on military hardware to combat the Southern Cameroon Defense Force.

Defense Minister, Jospeh Beti Assomo made the revelation and pointed out that Yaoundé intends to beef up Cameroon armed forces logistical, human, technical and operational aspects to “preserve the territorial integrity of the nation and ensure the safety of citizens and their property”.

“The goal is to win the war in the South West and North West regions” noted Mr. Beti Assomo. The Francophone member of government indicated that “no part of the South West and North West will be neglected and it is the question of providing appropriate answers to these two poles of insecurity in Anglophone Cameroon”.

Culled from Cameroon Intelligence Report

The body of the Chief of Nyang village in Akwaya Sub Division gruesomely murdered a week ago by a militant group with ties to the Southern Cameroons Defense Force has not been found. Cameroon Concord News gathered that Chief Abang Ashu had conspired with Cameroon government forces and betrayed some of the youth in his village. The pro CPDM traditional ruler was also feeding the Cameroon army with information regarding the activities of his subjects.

A source  confirmed  to our Manyu bureau chief  that on the faithful  day the  late Chief  Abang  Ashu  had compiled a list of  names of some youths  and was  heading  to Mamfe  the chief  town  in Manyu  Division to make a report to the troops stationed in Egbekaw. The angry young men caught him in Mukoyor inside Eshobi village en route to Mamfe.

He was beaten, legs chopped off and later tied on a bike and dragged to death in Mukoyor. His remains were taken to unknown destination by the Ambazonian militants. Cameroon government soldiers have been deployed to search the area for over a week now.

We understand the family of the late Chief made preparations for his burial and dug a grave inside his residence at Mile One in Mamfe and people have been keeping wake. But government troops have still not located his body in the Akwaya forest. Some have suggested his body may have been wrapped in plastic and dumped in the Manyu river.

By Judith Fon in Mamfe

A Cameroon military plane that had on board two colonels returning from an observation mission in the National Park in Benoue has crashed.  The incident occurred on Saturday, December 23, 2017 at Ngong some fifty kilometres from Garoua the chief city in the North region.

A sister publication, Cameroon Info.Net quoted military sources within the Garoua Air Base 301 that the Tetras-type ULM aircraft, registered TJ-XDA, crashed while on a mission in support of the 31st Mechanized Infantry Division (BRIM).

The plane was carrying two senior Cameroon military officials namely Colonel Tchouasseu Serge (deputy commander of Garoua Air Base 301) and Colonel Mbezele Dieudonné.  The two valiant officers came out safe and sound. Cameroon Concord News was reliably informed that an engine stopped in full flight prompting the two officers to force an emergency landing.

Returning from a reconnaissance mission against Boko Haram, a Cameroonian army helicopter crashed on the 22^nd of January 2017 at Bogo, Diamarét Division.  Four Cameroonian officers including Brigadier General Jacob Kodji, Commander of the Joint Military Region No. 4, were killed in the crash.

By Sama Ernest

At least three people were killed in two attacks by suspected members of terror group Boko Haram on Friday night and Saturday morning in Cameroon’s Far North region.

According to a member of the local vigilance committee, the first incursion occurred late Friday night in the Mayo-Moskota sub-division bordering Nigeria, when suspected Boko Haram members broke into the locality of Zeneme and killed two persons.

A second incursion into the same sub-division resulted in the death of a resident of the locality of Kerawa-Mafa. The Far North of Cameroon has seen a resurgence of terrorist violence in recent days towards the end of the year.

Early last week, three civilians were killed in two Boko Haram attacks in this troubled region. The Biya Francophone regime withdrew soldiers from the Boko Haram invested region and deployed them to Southern Cameroons. Cameroon government forces have reportedly killed hundreds of Southern Cameroons ever since the Anglophone uprising started last year.

A Cameroonian reporter with Radio France International, Ahmed Abba, was Friday released from jail after 29 months in detention, his lawyer said. “Ahmed Abba left Yaounde prison around 9:15 pm (Friday). He has been with me since his release, he is doing well,” Charles Tchoungang told AFP.

RFI editorial staff confirmed his release. A military tribunal in April sentenced Abba to 10 years in prison and fined him the equivalent of about 85,000 euros ($100,000) for “laundering the proceeds of terrorist acts” and “failure to denounce acts of terrorism”.

On appeal, the military court in Yaounde on Thursday aquitted him on the first charge and upheld the second, handing him a 24-month sentence. He was released Friday having already been held for 29 months.

Abba leaving jail

Abba, who had been reporting out of the troubled north of Cameroon, a region repeatedly targeted by Boko Haram, was arrested in July 2015 in the far northern town of Maroua.

The Hausa language RFI correspondent was suspected of collaborating with the jihadist group and not passing on information to the authorities.

His trial had been postponed 18 times and his appeal was also postponed several times in recent months. On Thursday evening, the management of RFI said it was “relieved at the prospect of this imminent release allowed by the Cameroonian court”.

Stressing the “emptiness of the charges” against him, RFI said “Ahmed Abba has only done his job as a journalist”.

Source: AFP

Several villages are said to have been set ablaze in Cameroon’s English speaking southwestern town of Mamfe after armed separatists attacked military installations and killed four soldiers. The Cameroon government says it has seized three of the armed separatists’ training camps.

Cameroon communication minister and government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma says for the past two weeks, military and armed separatist groups have been involved in bloody conflicts in the English speaking southwestern town of Mamfe on the border with Nigeria.

“Several suspects have been arrested, large quantities of war and hunting weapons as well as hundreds of military ammunition and uniforms have also been seized,” Tchiroma said. “One of those attacks has unfortunately claimed the lives of four of our gendarmes who were cold bloodedly killed this Monday December 18 in Kembong, Eyumojock sub division in Manyu division.”

Thchiroma refused to give the number of armed separatists killed by security forces in ensuing clashes, but disclosed that at least three border villages that hosted training camps for the fighters had been liberated.

Villagers say there has been an unprecedented harsh crackdown by the military, which also used helicopters to fire on civilians.

Kembong resident Victor Arrey Ndip says his village and two others have been completely destroyed by the fighting and many people are dying.

“They have bumped three villages so every body should be very careful with what is happening on the ground now,” Ndip said. “As I am telling you, people are dying in their numbers in Mamfe.”

Mamfe is a town in Manyu, an administrative area on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria where Cameroon says some of the fighters are trained. It has a vast expanse of forests, which the government says favors guerilla warfare with hit and run tactics from armed separatists.

The violence has pushed thousands of Cameroonians across the border to Nigeria since early October, when the separatists said they had declared their independence.

Schools have been closed in most of the English speaking northwest and southwest regions since November last year, when lawyers and teachers protested the overuse of French in the bilingual country. Violence erupted when separatists joined and called for complete independence.

President Paul Biya has made it clear that he will not negotiate on separation, saying the country is indivisible. When the separatists started attacking military positions, he declared war on them, describing the separatists as terrorists.

Source: VOA

The Cameroon government spokesman and Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary has reacted to the invasion of Kembong village by militants loyal to the Southern Cameroons struggle and reportedly confirmed that 4 gendarmerie officers lost their lives.

Report had it that Ambazonian militia stormed the gendarme post in Kembong village in Eyumojock Sub Division and were resisted by some troops deployed from Mamfe the chief town in Manyu Division.

The regime in Yaoundé had first dismissed the news as fictitious when it was reported by Cameroon Concord News. The Francophone dominated armed forces failed to track down the assailants and fired shots indiscriminately.

Cameroon Concord News can now reveal that 6 Cameroonian soldiers  were killed, 6 riffles  were seized by the Southern Cameroons militants and a pickup  4×4 hilux  truck was damaged along  the Mfuni road that  left  some of the passengers  seriously  wounded.

The people of Kembong suffered casualties with the most pathetic being the burning down of the home of the late UNDP parliamentarian Chief Alfred Besong by government soldiers. The Cameroon government troops also set fire on the only hotel in kembong including five other buildings.  A new brand Siena car was destroyed and a civilian shot on the leg.   The villagers have all escaped to the forest and kembong is now a ghost village.

By Judith Fon in Kembong

Militants seeking independence for Cameroon’s English-speaking regions killed four gendarmes on Monday, the government said, as disputes with the Francophone-dominated government degenerate into open warfare.

Several separatists were killed by security forces in ensuing clashes, the government spokesman said.

Repression by President Paul Biya’s government against what began as peaceful protests a year ago by Anglophone activists over perceived social and economic marginalization has bolstered support for armed militants demanding a full break with Yaounde.

The separatists have launched a series of deadly raids on government police and soldiers in recent weeks, leading authorities to escalate a crackdown that has killed dozens of civilians.

Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Cameroon’s government spokesman, said the separatists had killed four gendarmes earlier Monday in the village of Kembong in Southwest region’s Manyu Division.

“The assailants, ensnared by the measures put in place by our defense and security forces, are now reduced to sporadic attacks carried out by hidden faces and using perfidy,” Tchiroma said.

A representative for the separatists could not be immediately reached for comment.

Manyu, with its dense equatorial forests along the Nigerian border, has become the center of the insurgency from which the separatists have launched a series of attacks on security forces in villages.

FILE – A still image taken from a video shot Oct. 1, 2017, shows protesters waving Ambazonian flags in front of road block in the English-speaking city of Bamenda, Cameroon.

The violence there has fueled a mounting refugee crisis. At least 7,500 people have crossed into Nigeria since Oct. 1, when the secessionists declared an independent state called Ambazonia, and the U.N. refugee agency says it is bracing itself for as many as 40,000.

Cameroon’s linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War I, when the German colony of Kamerun was carved up between allied French and British victors.

The English-speaking regions joined the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon the year after its independence in 1960. French speakers have dominated the country’s politics since.

Tensions have long simmered but the recent violence is the most serious to date and has emerged as a threat to Biya’s 35-year rule. The 84-year-old is expected to seek a new term in an election next year.

Source: VOA

Women and children have disappeared in large numbers as the entire Dadi village was wiped out by the Francophone dominated Cameroon government armed forces. It was a larger scale campaign that involved three military helicopters and three task forces that swept into the village of Dadi immediately after President Biya declared war on the Anglophone communities in Cameroon.

Our military informant said that a French- supplied Hawker Hunter aircraft was used to drop grenades sending up large clouds of white smoke. No life   is exiting  in Dadi   village  in Akwaya  Sub division widely believe  to the stronghold  of the ADF force  as revealed in  a video  broadcast on social  media by the ADF leader, Cho Ayaba.

We can now reveal that it was an extermination campaign on one of the most thickly populated Boki villages in Manyu Division and those who attempted to escape were shot from helicopters. “Dead bodies can be seen everywhere” noted our source.

An aide to the Manyu army commander who spoke to our undercover reporter said that some of villagers suspected of having prepared the bullet proof charm were captured and transported via helicopter to the army camp in Besongabang and ferried by car to a Gerdarmarie brigade in Mamfe. Since then, they have never been heard again.

By Judith Fon