Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Texas A&M Law School Immigrant Rights Clinic and Civil Rights Clinic filed a case in the District of Columbia on behalf of two Cameroonian men abused by U.S. immigration detention officials and then deported back to persecution. The case, filed yesterday evening, seeks damages and return to the United States for a fair opportunity to apply for asylum.

As relayed in the complaint, detention officers pepper sprayed the two men and locked them in solitary confinement for peacefully protesting racist targeting by guards and denial of medical care. U.S. officials then deported the two men and illegally gave their asylum documents to Cameroonian officials, who imprisoned them as traitors. A 2022 Human Rights Watch report detailed the experiences of the plaintiffs and others who endured similar abuses.

According to one of the plaintiffs, JKA, “My life will never be the same because of the physical and mental pain I experienced in immigration detention in the United States. I am filing this lawsuit because I want to hold the United States government accountable for what it did to me.” Another plaintiff, TBF, says, “When I was a detained immigrant in the U.S., there were no human rights. I was tortured and there was no intervention to protect me. I plead that the world sees our fellow brothers and sisters who are detained as human beings in need of help.”

“The plight of my fellow Cameroonian brothers stands as a stark reminder of the hardships and injustices we face as Black Immigrants abused by U.S immigration enforcement,” said Daniel Tse, Founder of the Cameroon Advocacy Network and Legal Fellow at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. “As an advocate for justice on behalf of my fellow Cameroonians, I denounce the unjustifiable cruelty they endured simply for pursuing the human right to apply for asylum. Because the U.S. government refuses to rectify its wrongdoing by bringing these men back for a fair opportunity to apply for asylum, we are going to court to seek accountability, restitution, and justice.”

“The government used unlawful force, solitary confinement, and deportation to retaliate against two Black asylum seekers who resisted their harsh and discriminatory confinement in immigration jail through an organized hunger strike,” said Samah Sisay, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Our clients have suffered and are fighting for redress and an end to these wrongful acts.”

Source: Blackstarnews

At least three people were killed overnight into Tuesday in a terrorist attack on an internally displaced persons (IDP) site in Cameroon’s restive Far North region, according to local and security sources.

The attack on the Bakarisse IDP site in Kerawa locality was carried out by militants of the terrorist group, Boko Haram, a local resident said on condition of anonymity.

“They (Boko Haram) killed three displaced persons and wounded a woman. Our vigilante members retaliated and killed one of the terrorists,” the source said.

Bakarisse site hosts thousands of the displaced people who panicked after the attack. Security sources said some people had left the camp since attacks intensified in January.

Source: Xinhuanet

Military officials in Cameroon say they have found a mass grave near the border with Nigeria containing the bodies of nine civilians, including five government officials, who were abducted by rebels in June 2021. Government troops were led to the mass grave by a separatist fighter who participated in the killing, but surrendered and joined a disarmament and demobilization center.

Cameroon’s military says government troops exhumed the bodies from the mass grave, located about 20 kilometers from Ekondo Titi, a town in Ndian, an administrative unit on the border with Nigeria.

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Nguele said he led several dozen Cameroon government troops to the mass grave Saturday. He said they exhumed the bodies after a reconnaissance mission to the area, which is prone to regular separatist attacks. He said Cameroon’s government has asked the military to transport the human remains to Buea, capital of the English-speaking Southwest Region for families to identify and collect for reburial. Nguele said Cameroon can now confirm the individuals as dead and no longer missing.

Nguele said the victims were abducted in Ndian by a self-proclaimed separatist general known as 10 Kobo on June 15, 2021.

At the time, separatists claimed responsibility on social media and said the officials were abducted for collaborating with Cameroon’s central government in Yaounde.

One of the officials, Mabia Johnson Mudika, was killed three days later, while the other five were considered missing until the mass grave was found over the weekend.

Last month, Tamaya Clinton, a 24-year-old separatist fighter who disarmed and surrendered to authorities in Cameroon’s Southwest Region, said the officials were killed by separatist fighters. He promised to take government troops to the grave where the officials were buried.

The military did not say if Tamaya took them to the mass grave or not.

Bernard Okalia Bilai, governor of Cameroon’s Southwest Region, said the discovery of the mass grave once more indicates how brutal and insensitive separatist fighters are to civilians. He said the English-speaking elite should go to their towns and villages and ask fighters who are still hiding with weapons in the bush to surrender and be forgiven or otherwise be killed by government troops. He said the military will track fighters who have killed civilians and government officials since the separatist crisis erupted.

Bilai spoke on Cameroon state broadcaster CRTV.

Cameroon’s separatist crisis conflict began in 2017, after teachers and lawyers in the Northwest and Southwest Regions, where English is the predominant language, protested alleged discrimination from the country’s French-speaking majority.

The military responded with a crackdown and fighters took up weapons claiming to defend English-speaking civilians from what separatists described as extreme military brutality.

The conflict has killed an estimated 6,000 people and displaced more than three quarters of a million, according to the International Crisis Group.

Source: VOA

Yaoundé officials claim six Southern Cameroons Restoration fighters, including General Tiger were killed by Cameroon government forces in Bafut on Sunday August 6, 2023.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands General Tiger reportedly left the Bafut 7 Kata and joined the pro French Cameroun Atanga Nji Boys in April of 2022 and was a chartered member of the kidnapping and torture gang in the North West region.

Commenting on the current state of the Southern Cameroons uprising, the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima said the war “could take years.”

By Ewang Miriam Metchane

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has censured French interference and support for the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé as the main cause of the war in Ambazonia.

Dabney Yerima made the remarks during a meeting with members of the Interim Government late on Wednesday as he addressed some of the difficulties faced by Southern Cameroons Ground Zero commanders.

“Successive French administrations have supported the 90-year-old French Cameroun dictator providing him with guns and money and such interventionist policy is helping to prolong the war in Southern Cameroons” Yerima noted.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader went on to denounce the creation of so many restorations groups in the diaspora, emphasizing that the multiplicity of Ambazonia groups only favours the French Cameroun regime and prevents the Ambazonia Interim Government from reaching out to all brave Ambazonia fighters in Ground Zero.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Vice President Dabney Yerima said Paris is directly responsible for the suffering, poverty and underdevelopment in La Republique du Cameroun and that French President Emmanuel Macron has been obstructing any initiative aimed at putting an end to the failed Biya regime and also the war in Southern Cameroons.

Yerima said France is not allowing the construction of hydro-electricity dams in Southern Cameroons.

“The French embassy in Yaoundé forces Francophone authorities to either adopt or abandon certain policies that can bring peace and prosperity to the two Cameroons. Francophone army soldiers like those in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger must take La Republique interests into account first and foremost, and resist the pressure from Paris,” Dabney Yerima said.

By Ewang Miriam Metchane with additional reporting from Chi Prudence Asong

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government says the 40-year-old French Cameroun far-right regime’s insistence on pushing ahead with its war in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia has put Yaoundé on the path to collapse.

Dabney Yerima made the remarks in a Sunday conversation with Cameroon Concord News London Bureau Chief Asu Isong after the 90-year-old President Biya posthumously elevated on Saturday the late SDF Chairman Ni John Fru Ndi to the rank of Grand Cordon of Merit.

“Granting Fru Ndi that honour in a very dusty Southern Cameroons village has been the worst day in the history of the Yaoundé regime,” Yerima said, adding, “This is what puts Biya and his Francophone regime on the path of collapse, fragmentation, and disappearance.”

Dabney Yerima noted that ever since Biya declared war against the people of Southern Cameroons, some 6,000 Cameroon government army soldiers have been killed by Ambazonia Restoration Forces and that the notion of the Biya regime’s invincibility with French support has started to change in French Cameroun.

“La Republique and its backers are now facing a cascade of crises and they are all over Europe begging for money to sustain their criminality, we see that it is on the path toward collapse,” Yerima furthered.

Biya went to Russia to beg as usual, using the Russia-Africa Summit as an excuse or a pretext but left the Russian capital, Moscow, with a bloodshot eye.

Russia may be in need of allies but it does not have money to give to irresponsible governments like the Yaoundé government which has been on a begging spree for decades.

By Ewang Miriam Metchane

Hundreds of women and activists marched in the capital of Cameroon Monday, calling for an end to the country’s separatist crisis and for the government to provide more help to reduce the high cost of living. The march coincides with the observance of Pan African Women’s Day.

Several hundred women at a courtyard in the neighborhood of Tsinga listen or sing along with the song “Family Love” by singer Kareyce Fotso.

The song urges families to sincerely love each other and be united as they try to overcome difficulties caused by several crises Cameroon is experiencing.

Anne Anaba, one of the coordinators of Monday’s march, says the women assembled at the courtyard afterward to demand an end to the separatist war in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions.

The war has killed about 6,000 people and displaced 700,000 others.

The march was also part of activities marking the annual observance of Pan African Women’s Day. The holiday, declared by the African Union, is observed every July 31.

Anaba says poverty and hardships triggered by armed conflicts and unprecedented spikes in commodity prices have impacted families from building foundation stones for solid African societies. She says conflicts kill or displace men from communities and women spend time running for safety instead of teaching children to love, live together in peace and socially develop their communities.

She said women are the most affected by Cameroon’s separatist crisis.

Women and children are also deeply affected by food insecurity along the northern borders with Chad and Nigeria where an Islamist insurgency has left more than 36,000 people dead, and 3 million displaced.

Cameroon women say besides the armed conflicts, they are finding it extremely difficult to cope with the rising prices of goods— which they blame on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The government says since the Russian war began in February 2022, prices of rice, wheat, fuel and fertilizer have increased by between 40 to 60%.

Kiven Juliet, the president of Wheat Farmers in Cameroon’s Center region, says she followed the Russia-Africa summit on July 27 when Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow will begin free deliveries of 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain to some African countries.

But Kiven says Cameroon can ensure sufficiency by growing its food at home.

“I heard during the Russia-Africa summit that Russia will be giving wheat to African countries free of charge, but that is not what we want. Our governments should give subsidies for farmers to buy fertilizers and produce the wheat themselves,” she said.

Marie-Therese Abena Ondoa, Cameroon’s minister of women’s empowerment, says in 2022, President Paul Biya ordered the disbursement of over $15 million to grow wheat in the central African state. She says women who apply will have funding for fertilizer, wheat and rice seeds.

“Women represent an essential agricultural workforce and undeniably contribute to [the] fight against hunger and poverty,” she said. “Women contribute significantly to the stability of life in the countryside and reduce the scale of rural exodus. They take care of their children, are involved in domestic and agricultural works to ensure food and nutrition for families and communities. They are also known for their support of movements for democracy, human rights and peace.”

Biya was among the African leaders who attended the summit in St. Petersburg. He asked Putin to help Africa by increasing investment and canceling debt from loans.

Source: VOA

John Fru Ndi, the founder of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) was posthumously elevated on Saturday to the rank of Cameroonian Grand Cordon of Merit. This is the highest distinction in the Cameroonian Order of Merit.

The pro French Cameroun Anglophone politician, who passed away on June 12 in Yaoundé, began his final trip on Thursday July 27 and was buried on Saturday in Babba II, his native village near Bamenda.

Great cordon of Cameroonian merit as an honorary distinction was posthumously bestowed upon the Chairman of the SDF. The attributes of this mark of recognition of the Nation were laid on his coffin by Jean Nkuete, personal representative of the Head of State.

Fru Ndi’s funeral was reportedly attended by senior members of the Biya regime including representatives of the diplomatic corps and the business community.

By Ewang Miriam Metchane with files from Fon Lawrence