News

29, November 2022

Yaoundé Landslide: Rescue workers still searching for victims ⁰

Rescue workers in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, are searching for people believed trapped under a landslide that killed at least 14 people and injured scores more Sunday. The victims were attending a funeral when the landslide occurred.

Civilians mourn as they join rescue workers in digging and searching for people they fear are trapped underneath a huge pile of debris.

The soil and stones collapsed Sunday evening on several hundred community members from Cameroon’s west region who had gathered for a funeral of people who died within the past month.

Rosette Ngeufack, 50, is among the mourners. She says she saw the ground collapse on scores of people including her two sons.Ngeufack says she is still searching for her 24-year-old son who was buried by the landslide alongside his motorcycle. She says she left the Yaounde central hospital at 2 a.m. after hospital staff reassured her that her 21-year-old son, also a victim of the landslide, is responding to treatment.

It is a tradition in Cameroon for communities to organize funeral events in towns after burial of their community members in villages.

People who attended the funeral prior to the landslide said they had prayed for the departed and were sharing drinks and food when the unfortunate incident occurred.

Nasseri Paul Bea, governor of Cameroon’s center region where Yaounde is located, visited the disaster site for the second time within 15 hours on Monday morning. He says that investigations carried out by Cameroon police indicate that some civilians are still trapped in the landslide.

Bea says he asked the government for more troops to assist rescue workers who for the past 14 hours have been searching for people. He says bodies removed from the disaster site are identified by the police and taken to the mortuary of the central hospital in Yaounde and then eventually to their family members.

Cameroon’s government says the landslide occurred when an 18-meter-high embankment collapsed on several hundred civilians attending a funeral in a house constructed in a risky area.

Bea said the embankment that gave way was not solid enough to stop the soil from collapsing.

Cameroon’s Housing Ministry Monday asked people living in areas deemed at risk of landslides to immediately to leave or be forced to relocate.

Yaounde, a city of about 3 million people, has had devastating floods caused by heavy rains within the past three months. The government says more than 25 houses constructed in risky areas have collapsed, injuring and killing scores of people.

Source: VOA

29, November 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: US charges three for supporting Amba fighters ⁰

The US Justice Department announced charges Monday against three men who allegedly helped fund separatist fighters in Cameroon and supported the 2020 kidnapping of Catholic cardinal Christian Tumi.

The three men, US citizens of Cameroon origin, are accused of raising $350,000 for arms and bomb-making materials for the separatist Ambazonian Restoration Forces operating in Cameroon’s English-speaking northwest region.

The funds also supported kidnappings by the separatists, including of Tumi and Sehm Mbinglo, a traditional chief in the troubled region.

Both were freed within days. Tumi, who died in 2021, had frequently sought to mediate between the government and the separatists in the mainly French-speaking country.

The Justice Department said Claude Chi, 40, of Lee’s Summit, Missouri; Francis Chenyi, 49, of St. Paul, Minnesota; and Lah Nestor Langmi, 46, of Buffalo, New York, were arrested Monday on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to support kidnappings and use weapons of mass destruction in a foreign country.

Each man held a senior position in an organization that supported and directed the Ambazonian Restoration Forces, according to the Justice Department.

The three “solicited and raised funds for equipment, supplies, weapons and explosive materials to be used in attacks against Cameroonian government personnel, security forces and property, along with other civilians believed to be enabling the government,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

They also conspired with people in Cameroon to kidnap civilians for ransom, it said.

It said they raised the funds from donations by others in the United States and other countries.

Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions have been gripped by conflict since separatists declared independence in 2017 after decades of grievances at perceived discrimination by the francophone majority.

The conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives and forced more than a million people to flee their homes, according to the International Crisis Group.

Source: AFP

28, November 2022

Al Shabaab militants besiege hotel in Mogadishu; Somali parliament session postponed ⁰

At least four people were killed in an ongoing attack by Al Shabaab militants who laid siege to a popular hotel in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu overnight, a national security agency official told AFP on Monday.

Gunfire and explosions could still be heard more than 12 hours after the militants stormed the Villa Rose hotel near the presidential palace in a hail of bullets.

Mohamed Dahir, an official from the national security agency, told AFP the gunmen were holed up in a room at the hotel surrounded by government forces.

“So far we have confirmed the death of four people”, he said, adding that others had been rescued from the besieged venue.

Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab militants stormed the hotel on Sunday using guns and explosives, with a police officer saying at the time that some government officials escaped from its windows.

“There is still heavy gunfire inside the hotel and we hear explosions from time to time … we are still in our houses since last night, when the siege started,” Ismail Haaji, who lives near the hotel, told Reuters.

Special forces units, known as Haramcad and Gaashaan, had taken over operations, said a police officer at the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The fighters who launched the attack are still fighting inside the hotel, and they are fighting with the forces of Haramcad and Gaashaan, and security forces are trying to rescue the people trapped inside the hotel,” the officer added.

Government officials in Mogadishu frequently use the Villa Rose hotel for meetings.

Somalia’s parliament said it had postponed a scheduled session for both of its houses.

“All members of parliament of both councils are being informed that today’s scheduled meeting has been postponed,” it said in a statement on its Facebook page.

Al Shabaab, which is seeking to topple the government and establish its own rule based on an extreme interpretation of Islamic law, frequently stages attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere.

Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who was elected this year, has launched a military offensive against the group.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)

27, November 2022

French Cameroun: Yaoundé landslide kills 11 ⁰

A landslide in Yaounde on Sunday killed at least 11 people gathered to mourn the deaths of several local people, the regional governor told state broadcaster CRTV.

Early Sunday evening, police pick-up tracks were taking away bodies covered by white sheets, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.

Emergency services were trying to make their way to the site, as hundreds of local people frantically searched for loved ones.

The disaster happened in the working-class district of Damas, on the eastern outskirts of the capital.

Residents told AFP the accident happened as several families were gathered under large tents on waste ground at the top of a hill, when part of the ground beneath them gave way.

“For the moment, we have 11 bodies,” the governor, Naseri Paul Bea, told CRTV radio. “The search is continuing to find other bodies under the earth.”

The people had gathered to mourn members of their families who had died, he added.

Source: AFP

24, November 2022

Equatorial Guinea partially reopens border with Cameroon, Chad ⁰

Traders working on Cameroon’s border with Equatorial Guinea say Malabo has partially reopened border traffic a day after partial election results indicate Teodoro Obiang Nguema will extend his 43-year rule. The 80-year-old Nguema, the world’s longest-ruling head of state, came to power in a 1979 coup and has since ruled the west African nation with an iron fist.

Merchants from Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria say they were permitted to enter Equatorial Guinea Wednesday.

Equatorial Guinea closed its borders October 30 ahead of its November 20 elections and said it wanted to prevent what it called “infiltration of mercenaries who want to destabilize the elections.”

Cameroon-born building material exporter Pierre Marie Mihamle says several hundred traders entered Equatorial Guinea a day after the central African state’s government announced November 20 elections results.

He says the re-election of Obiang as president of Equatorial Guinea means the movement of goods and persons to the central African state will be frequently interrupted or meticulously controlled. Mihamle says foreign nationals who speak against Obiang will be chased from Equatorial Guinea.

Mihamle said Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo Brazzaville are members of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, or CEMAC, but Obiang regularly orders the deportation of foreign citizens, citing national economic and security concerns.

Obiang’s ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea, or the PDGE, is winning over 98% of the vote in presidential, legislative, and municipal elections held Sunday, according to preliminary election results released this week by Equatorial Guinea’s interior minister, Clemente Engonga Nguema Onguene. The results indicate that Obiang’s challengers, Andrés Esono Ondo of the CPDS party and former ally Buenaventura Monsuy Asumu of the PCSD, got 1.34% and 0.35% of the vote.

The final results of the one-round election will be announced November 26, according to Equatorial Guinea’s electoral laws. The 80-year-old Obiang is Africa’s longest serving leader. He took power from his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, in an August 1979 coup.

Ngah Derrick is an international relations specialist at Cameroon’s National Institute of International Relations. He says Equatorial Guinea should not expect any changes from Obiang, who has ruled the country with an iron fist.

“Obiang has done everything to eternalize power,” said Derrick. “The reigning vice president of the country that is his son is the vice president of the Republic and it tells you that he is gradually grooming his son in order to be able to ascend to the highest office of magistracy of the state in Equatorial Guinea in case he [Obiang] becomes tired, sick or in case of death.”

Obiang’s son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, is Equatorial Guinea’s vice president. Equatorial Guinea’s political opposition says Obiang’s rule is marked by favoritism, persecution and torture of political opponents. Santiago Oliveira, who led Obiang’s election campaign in Cameroon, denies the charges. He says the long-serving central African state’s leader should be credited with bringing development to his country.

He says Obiang has transformed Equatorial Guinea from a very poor and heavily indebted country it was in 1980, to an emerging economy today.

Oliveira said Equatorial Guinea civilians who voted in Cameroon should wait for Malabo to declare election results. He said all civilians should rally behind Obiang as he continues managing affairs of the state in the country’s general interest.

The United Nations says Equatorial Guinea has an annual oil revenue of more than $3 billion, but most of its 1.5 million people live in abject poverty. The nation’s opposition parties say most of the wealth is in the hands of Obiang, his family and friends.

Source: VOA

24, November 2022

South Africa records over 7,000 murders between July and September ⁰

New police statistics show more than 7,000 people have been murdered by criminal gangs in a span of three months across South Africa.

On Wednesday, South Africa’s parliamentary portfolio committee on police heard details of the crime statistics, recording those crimes reported to the South African Police Service (SAPS) from July 1 to September 30.

Quarterly crime statistics showed a rise in murder, rape and kidnapping figures compared with the same period last year. The murder rate rose 14 percent during the period, compared with the same timeframe in 2021, when 6,163 people were killed. Virtually 1,000 women and more than 550 children were among those murdered during the period.

More than 13,000 women were also victims of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and 1,277 women were victims of attempted murder.

Rapes, in a country notorious for sex assaults against women and children, also recorded a huge jump. Kidnappings doubled to more than 4,000 in the three months, compared to the same time last year.

Commenting on violence against women and children, Police Minister Bheki Cele said, “The rate at which women are abused, violated and some killed in South Africa remains worrying and unacceptable.”

“The crime statistics again show that we as communities continue to fail to protect some of the most vulnerable in society: our children,” Cele said.

Carjackings rose 24 percent to more than 6,000.

The police minister promised that 10,000 new recruits would be ready to join the police force before the Christmas and New Year period, when crime typically rises. Their deployment “will intensify police visibility during the festive season and beyond,” he said. “Nothing will replace fighting crime [better] than warm bodies.”

Andrew Whitfield, a lawmaker with the largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, however, called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire Cele. “The bloodbath of violent crime remains out of control across the country with millions of people living in fear.”

Source: Presstv

23, November 2022

French Cameroun: Thousands displaced, lose homes in Boko Haram attacks ⁰

Karou Modou lived a happy life tilling her garden and rearing animals in her native Cherif-Moussari village at the foot of Mandara Mountains along the Cameroon-Nigeria border.

The 42-year-old mother of eight says her garden was all she had to provide and educate her children. But things changed in 2015.

Boko Haram terrorists attacked her village seven years ago, butchered her father and gunned down her son before abducting one of her daughters. The attackers, she says also burnt her harvest and went away with animals. In fear, Modou joined other villagers to flee for her dear life.

“It was difficult,” she remembers.

She narrates a laborious journey to safety passing through other villages like Nguetchewe and Koza before eventually finding solace in Zamai, 62km from Maroua, the Far North regional capital, joining other Cameroonian families who were also forcibly uprooted from their homes by the insurgency and were struggling to rebuild their lives in IDP sites.

Attacks on civilians

The Boko Haram insurgency began in Nigeria in 2009 before spreading across the Lake Chad basin countries, including Cameroon. They rapidly stepped up attacks on civilians in towns and villages, exacerbating security fears for a region that was already prone to banditry and trafficking.

According to an April 2021 UN report, the Boko Haram war in northern Cameroon has caused a major humanitarian crisis, with over 322,000 people displaced from their homes.

Of the displaced, Zamai is hosting nearly 4,000 in five sites, official figures showed.

Modou says integration and survival were an uphill task for her and the rest of the family members.

WFP initiative

The World Food Programme (WFP) has been helping the women rebuild their old livelihoods through an initiative Food Assistance For Assets Creation. It enables households to not only rely on WFP-donated food rations in the short term but also trains communities to support growing food and trade of produce between communities, according to Miguel Nzegang, WFP programme associate for Resilience and Livelihood Activities.

The UN Agency says it has created a water pond in the arid area to support agriculture and livestock activities and improve food security, secured land for community farms and erected a 150 metric ton capacity storage house for the community.

Nzegang told The EastAfrican that the project cannot take care of everyone in the community as a result of insufficient funding.

“Our biggest challenge is limited funding. For now, we are only able to reach 2,000 beneficiaries whereas the population of Zamai is over 30,000,” he said.

“We target the most vulnerable because we cannot reach out to everybody due to insufficient funding” he said.

“We need to provide them with full access to resources and opportunities so they can be effective contributors to food security and nutrition and efficient business and economic actors,” added Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan, the WFP senior special adviser on Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition, after visiting the camp on November 2, 2022.

Hope turned into nightmare

Not everyone has been lucky like Modou though. Ali Aisha, 21, arrived at the IDP settlement more than a year ago but is still looking for bearing. She had been living with her uncle and schooling in neighbouring Borno State of Nigeria – the epicentre.

When she returned to Cameroon, her hope for a better life turned into nightmare. In 2019, they attacked her village, killing the men and kidnapped the women. The women are still missing.

“After fleeing, we just kept walking, wandering in the forest,” she explained, saying a military truck on patrol later rescued them. She hopes staying at the camp will help her get opportunities to train and be self-reliant.

Source: The East African

22, November 2022

Turkish drone hits Syrian Kurdish base used by US-led coalition, says Kurds ⁰

A base in northeastern Syria used jointly by Kurdish forces and the US-led coalition was hit in a Turkish drone strike on Tuesday, according to a Syrian Kurdish group and independent monitoring agency. The strike came as the US and Russia urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to call off a planned ground invasion into northern Syria.

“A joint base north of Hasakeh used for planning and executing joint operations against the Islamic State group has been hit by a Turkish drone,” a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Farhad Shami, told AFP, adding that two SDF fighters had been killed.

A British-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed the joint base had come under attack but was not immediately in a position to say whether coalition forces had been present at the time.

Turkey launched a series of air strikes under “Operation Claw-Sword” on Sunday – hitting dozens of Kurdish militant targets across Iraq and Syria.

Tuesday’s strike in Hasakeh came hours before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country would “soon” launch a ground operation in Syria against Kurdish militants.

“We have been on top of terrorists for a few days with our planes, cannons and drones,” Erdogan said in a televised address on Tuesday. “God willing, we will root out all of them soon with our tanks, artillery and soldiers.”

Erdogan’s address came despite US and Russian warnings against a ground offensive in Syria.

US, Russian calls for de-escalation

Russia on Tuesday called for Turkey to exercise “restraint” and warned against “destabilising” Syria.

“We understand and respect Turkey’s concerns regarding its own security. We believe this is the legal right of Turkey,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“We still call on all parties to refrain from steps that could lead to seriously destabilising the situation,” he said.

He added that it could “boomerang back and further complicate the security situation”.

The US on Monday also called for a de-escalation

“We urge de-escalation in Syria to protect civilian life and support the common goal of defeating ISIS,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement, referring to the fight against the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group.

Violence rises after Istanbul attack

Turkey’s latest escalation of its longstanding conflict against Kurdish militants follows a November 13 attack in Istanbul that killed six people and wounded 81. Ankara blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is blacklisted as a terror group by the EU and the US.

The PKK – which was involved in peace talks with the Turkish state before Erdogan scrapped negotiations in 2016 – has denied involvement in the November 13 Istanbul attack.

Erdogan has threatened a new military operation into northern Syria since May and upped those threats in the wake of this month’s bomb attack.

Turkey has launched three offensives into Syria since 2016 aimed at crushing Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom it charges are allied to the PKK.

Erdogan has repeatedly called for a 30-kilometre (19-mile) “safe zone” to protect southern Turkey against cross-border attacks from Syrian territory.

At least three people, including a child, were killed in a Turkish border town on Monday by a rocket strike fired from Syria.

Source: AFP

20, November 2022

US: Mass shooting at LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado ⁰

At least five people were killed and 18 wounded, police said Sunday, in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in the US city of Colorado Springs.

“It’s with a heavy heart I have to tell you that we had a shooting at a local club this evening,” said police spokesperson Pamela Castro.

“We have 18 injured and five deceased. That number is subject to change as the investigation continues,” she said.

Castro said police received an emergency call just before midnight on Saturday (0657 GMT Sunday) saying that there was an active shooting at a local club known as Club Q.

She said medical teams and officers responded and “they did locate one individual who we believe to be the suspect inside.”

Club Q responded by saying it “is devastated by the senseless attack on our community.”

“We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack,” it posted on Facebook Sunday.

The club had posted earlier on Saturday about an LGBTQ event starting at 8 pm.

“We’re celebrating Transgender Day of Remembrance with a variety of gender identities and performance styles,” the post read.

The Colorado Springs Police Department said there would be an 8:00 am news conference on the shooting.

The US Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as a single incident in which at least four people are wounded or killed.

On June 12, 2016, a gunman opened fire inside the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and wounding more than 50 in what was then the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

US President Joe Biden marked the fifth anniversary of the Orlando shooting last year, taking the rare step of saying he would designate the club as a national memorial.

Source: AFP

17, November 2022

CPDM billionaire tales: New revelations in the “Baba Danpullo affair” ⁰

Baba Ahmadou Danpullo of Cameroon and Aliko Dangote of Nigeria are both wealthy African businessmen. The similarities end there!

In early 2020 financial regulators in South Africa seized and liquidated all of Danpullo’s properties valued at 277 million US dollars.

The chartered member of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate and powerful acolyte of the 89-year-old President Paul Biya has reportedly been operating in South Africa for over 35 years, creating employment from many of his investments and sponsoring the killings of thousands of people in Anglophone Cameroon with the proceeds.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands Baba Danpullo’s criminal business empire is managed by Bestinver Company South Africa Ltd, Joburg Skyscraper Pty Ltd, and Bestinver Prop 01 Proprietary Ltd, which are all subsidiaries of Bestinver, the group he founded with political support from the regime in Yaoundé.

Things are falling apart for the Francophone Cameroon criminal and like he evicted the Aghem people from their ancestral lands in Menchum Division in the North West region with the support of President Biya in order to settle his cows, so too is he being evicted from the properties that he built in South Africa with fraudulent loans and blood money from Cameroon.

Baba Danpullo says the happenings in the Republic of South Africa is racist and xenophobic and borders on exclusionism aimed at retarding African progress by targeting black African businesspeople. This is simply not true!!

Over the years, Baba Danpullo has represented ill-gotten wealth from senior Cameroon government officials including the Biya family which he used in building a vast property portfolio in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth). Franck Biya, President Biya’s eldest son spent years in South Africa monitoring his father’s own share of the Baba Danpullo criminal enterprise.

Danpullo’s lawyers have been telling the courts in South Africa that the so-called Cameroonian business tycoon’s properties generate approximately R20m a month, creating employment across the real estate sector and supporting jobs along the value chain. But coming from a country in Sub Saharan Africa that has nothing to show the world! Danpullo’s crime syndicate has inflicted a lot of pain on Cameroonians and his demise in South Africa is a welcome relief to the Cameroonian people.

Cameroon’s economy remains an equation that might not be solved by the South Africa seizure alone. Cameroon is in the abyss of a financial crisis and corrupt businessmen like Danpullo are helping slowly but surely to make the country spiral into chaos.

Danpullo and the Biya family are investing in far away South Africa while Cameroon’s economy is on life support. Years of mismanagement and incompetence have eroded the country’s financial base.

Not being able to influence the judicial system in South Africa, the conman in early September had the accounts of subsidiaries of South African groups seized in Yaoundé, in order to obtain payment of more than €370m ($371m).

Like what all CPDM criminals do, on September 5 Baba Ahmadou Danpullo obtained from Quentin Djapité Ndoumbe, the president of the Court of First Instance in Bonanjo in Douala an order to seize the accounts of the operator MTN Cameroon and chocolate maker Chococam (a subsidiary of the South African food group Tiger Brands) at local banks. Danpullo is demanding payment of 243bn CFA franc (more than $371m).

By some strange happenstance, the liquidation of Danpullo’s company in South Africa and intervention by President Paul Biya is making matters more intractable.

According to Baba Danpullo’s spokesperson, the Covid-19 crisis and the arrival of a new manager at the First National Bank (FNB) are at the root of his setbacks in South Africa.

However, commenting on the matter, Jeune Afrique observed that a certain vagueness remains as the South African liquidators of Baba Danpullo’s company Bestinver reported difficulties beginning as early as late 2019, a few months before the start of the pandemic. It was indeed exactly when he reportedly made millions of US dollars available to the Cameroonian military to continue the war in Anglophone Cameroon.

Jeune Afrique also noted that the confinements imposed by Pretoria in 2020 did not help. Bestinver’s shopping centres, Princess Crossing in the suburbs of Johannesburg, Moffet on Main and Kings Court in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), have seen frequentation plummet.

Cameroon Intelligence Report is keeping a watchful eye on the Danpullo Affair and we will keep our readers posted as we get more details.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai