The pro French Cameroun mayor of Kumbo Dr Mborong Venaslus has shut down the popular Mbveh market, citing security reasons.

Cameroon Concord News understands the closure is part of an anti Southern Cameroons strategy being teleguided from Yaoundé in a bid to suffocate Ambazonia fighters operating in Bui County.  

Mbveh is one of the biggest markets in Kumbo and it is frequented daily by hundreds of Southern Cameroonians from different parts of Bui.

The controversial Dr Mborong said in a press release that the market provides finances for Amba fighters.

The mayor with a PhD attached to his name thinks the closure will guard against the escalation of Ambazonia self defense actions against the Francophone dominated Cameroon government military.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Fon Lawrence

Thousands of Southern Cameroonians have gathered in several countries in Europe, Asia and North America to condemn the war in British Southern Cameroons and to celebrate the proclamation of the independence of the Ambazonia homeland by President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

Southern Cameroonians took to the streets in Ground Zero and in the diaspora on October 1 to celebrate the creation of Africa’s newest nation.

Cameroon’s utmost authority, 89-year old President Paul Biya, has not commented on the Anglophone celebration.

Following major rallies in key cities in Europe and North America including Strasbourg over the weekend, Southern Cameroonians chanted anti French Cameroun slogans and death to La Republique du Cameroun.

By Isong Asu

More than two million Ambazonians on a sea of cars and motorbikes paraded in celebration of the proclamation of Southern Cameroons independence.

Processions were staged in all Southern Cameroons administrative units. Southern Cameroons social media outlets said more than two million people were involved in the celebrations and the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation (SCBC) showed crowds in many towns and villages.

The anniversary comes as many moderate Anglophone human rights activists including Barrister Agbor Balla are now calling for a meeting between Yaoundé and the jailed leaders of the Ambazonia Interim Government.

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima said the people of Southern Cameroons are taking big steps to get to Buea the historic capital of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Southern Cameroonians waved Ambazonia flags, chanting My Trip To Buea slogans and carrying placards that read “Free At Last” and “Death to La Republique Du Cameroun” in celebration on Saturday, a commemoration for the uprising that led to the current crisis in Anglophone Cameroon.

By Fon Lawrence with files

Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces in Meme Division have put all Cameroon government soldiers operating in Kumba and its neighboring villages on notice, warning that they will be targeted as long as Yaoundé continue with its military operations in the Ambazonia homeland.

Speaking during celebrations marking October 1 Major General Transporter said Francophone army soldiers will no longer have any window of opportunity to operate in Meme Division and that the soldiers should leave Amba soil fast.

The Francophone dominated Biya regime have been waging a war against  British Southern Cameroonians since 2016, trying, in vain, to stifle the Ambazonia uprising.  The military campaign, which has been enjoying unstinting arms, logistical, and political support from France, has killed thousands of English speaking Cameroonians, and turned the entire Southern Cameroons into the scene of Africa’s worst humanitarian crisis.

By Rita Akana

Cameroonian authorities have banned public gatherings in Bamenda, the capital of the restive Northwest Region, where armed separatist conflicts are underway.

Simon Emile Mooh, the prefect of the Mezam division where Bamenda is located, said in a statement issued Wednesday that “undeclared meetings and public manifestations” have been banned in the city until further notice.

The statement came after separatists announced plans to hold a public manifestation Saturday to mark the “independence” of the country’s two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.

Any individual or group that violates the provisions of this order “shall be punished in accordance with the rules and regulations in force,” Mooh warned.

Bamenda, the most populous and largest city in English-speaking Cameroon, is also the stronghold of separatist fighters who want to establish an independent state in the country’s two Anglophone regions and have been clashing with government forces since 2017.

Source: Xinhuanet

English-speaking separatists have for the first time acknowledged deadly clashes between splinter rebel groups.

In a video circulated Saturday on social media platforms, Cameron’s English-speaking fighters say they have freed several civilians abducted by rebels. The fighters presented two people who said in the video they are separatist commanders, and their weapons were seized by a rival English-speaking separatist group called the Marines.

A separatist group called the Buffaloes shared another video that they said was taken in Bali, an English-speaking northwestern district, in which they claimed to have attacked another rebel group created by a self-proclaimed rebel general known as Big Number. They said Big Number fighters abducted a man and were asking for ransom.

The Buffaloes that shared the video, in which they claim Big Number sent fighters to harass civilians, said the abductions, killings, maiming, raping and torture of civilians have increased. The Buffaloes said separatists cannot claim they are protecting civilians from the brutality of Cameroon’s government troops, if fighters are committing gross human rights violations.

Both the Cameroon government and separatist leaders have confirmed that the videos are those of rival separatist groups in Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions.

Some separatist groups on social media platforms are also calling for the immediate release of all abductees, including five Catholic priests, a nun and two worshippers kidnapped this month from a church on the border with Nigeria.

The Catholic Church in Cameroon says the gunmen asked for $100,000 in ransom.

When the separatist crisis broke out in 2016, separatists said Cameroon’s central government in Yaounde was using education as an instrument of manipulation and assimilation of English speakers by the French-speaking majority.

Splinter groups say the lockdowns imposed by separatists on Monday are a sign that fighters, not the central government in Yaounde, control the English-speaking regions and hurt English-speaking civilians. The splinter groups say they no longer support school closures imposed by separatists.

Activist Edward Nfor, a member of a coalition of civil society organizations in Cameroon, said civilians think the fight for independence of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions from the French majority is losing purpose and is plunging civilians into more suffering.

“Citizens are fed up, because it looks like it has become a money-making organization with abductions and asking for money,” Nfor said. “We have unnecessary roadblocks, and they [fighters] collect money from passengers in vehicles like church offerings. So, I think these rival groups that are coming up now are actually, like, telling the people, ‘We do the right thing. We are going to defend you.'”

Nfor said his association is a neutral observer advocating for an end to the crisis so that people who have been suffering can return to their towns and villages.

Rights groups have accused both Cameroon’s military and anglophone separatists of killing civilians and torching their homes in the conflict. Both sides reject the accusations.

The United Nations says the fighting has left at least 3,300 people dead and more than 750,000 internally displaced.

Source: VOA

Many houses belonging to Southern Cameroonians in the Northern Zone were on September 25, 2022 set ablaze by Cameroon government army soldiers.

According to reports, the sad incident happened in Awing in the North West region.

The army had reportedly threatened the villagers to provide intelligence on Ambazonia fighters operating in the area.

The operation, which was conducted in the early hours of Sunday 25 September 2022, led to the killing of a women and her four months old baby.

By Fon Lawrence

Reverend Father Sergius, a Catholic Priest in Vekovi, a small town in the Northwest region, was on Monday, September 26, 2002, abducted from his residence by Amba fighters and taken to an unknown location.

 In a video circulating online, the priest could be seen sitting on the ground surrounded by his captors who accused him of having a hand in the killing of one of their senior military officials, General Fire, who was recently picked up from his sick bed in the Banso Baptist Hospital by Government forces and executed.

In the video, the Reverend Father is seen being kicked while being interrogated by his abductors.

The abductors have not yet provided any evidence that the priest was responsible for the killing of the Amba general.

Over the last few months, Amba fighters have resorted to kidnapping religious officials and this is giving the insurgency a very bad name.

By Alain Agbor Ebot

Two Southern Cameroonians were killed after being shot by soldiers loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé on Wednesday, the latest violence in a region hit by bloody conflict between Ambazonia fighters and the Francophone dominated Cameroon government military.

Yaoundé as usual described the Nylbat-Andek killings as an “unfortunate incident” claiming that three of its soldiers disobeyed orders and attacked villagers.

“The men, acting “in violation of their instructions, attacked some residents on whom one of the soldiers unfortunately opened fire”, said Colonel Cyrille Atonfack, communications officer at the ministry of defence, in a press statement.

The Southern Cameroons victims were two women aged 47 and 49.

In its continued efforts aimed at deceiving international public opinion, Yaoundé also said that the soldiers were arrested and an investigation had been opened.

Southern Cameroons have suffered a bloody conflict between Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards and the Francophone dominated Cameroon government military for years.

Southern Cameroons resentment at perceived discrimination snowballed into the declaration of an independent state in 2017 — the “Federal Republic of Ambazonia” by the Ambazonian leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

Biya, 89, has resisted calls for more autonomy in the regions and responded with a crackdown on Southern Cameroonians.

The violence has claimed more than 45, 000 lives and displaced around a million people, according to Ambazonia Interim Government sources.

International monitors and the United Nations say both sides have committed abuses, including crimes against civilians.

In February 2020, at least 23 people were killed in a military raid on the village of Ngarbuh in the North West, 15 of whom were children, according to UN figures.

By Rita Akana with files from AFP