News

27, September 2022

Francophone soldiers set houses belonging to Southern Cameroonians ablaze in Awing ⁰

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

27, September 2022

Amba fighters kidnap Catholic priest in the Northwest region ⁰

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

23, September 2022

Two Southern Cameroonians shot by Francophone soldiers in North West ⁰

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

22, September 2022

Southern Cameroonians learned of Mrs. Chris Anu cancer diagnosis just days before her death ⁰

Lady Anu’s brave cancer battle was kept secret from the entire Southern Cameroons public both at home and in the diaspora until just days before her tragic death, Cameroon Concord News has gathered from sources close to the Ambazonia front line leader.

The Anu family in the USA announced early this morning that his wife had passed away following a heroic battle with cancer.

Prominent Southern Cameroons leaders in Europe and the US including some friends of the couple have now revealed they only learned of her condition shortly before the tragic news was made public.

A senior Ambazonian figure in the US contacted by this reporter but who asked not to be named, said she knew about the diagnosis when she was called to make a donation for her recovery process.

In a conversation with Cameroon Concord News, a top aide of the Ambazonia Interim Government said no one within the Dabney Yerima administration knew what the late Mrs. Anu was battling.

He continued of her passing: ‘It is shocking and unbelievably sad.’

This item is still developing

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

22, September 2022

China’s former justice minister faces life in prison for bribery ⁰

China’s former justice minister faces life in prison after a court handed him a suspended death sentence on Thursday for taking bribes and “bending the law”.

Fu Zhenghua’s death sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment after a two-year reprieve, the Intermediate People’s Court in the city of Changchun said in a statement.

The high-profile sentencing — part of a sweeping anti-graft campaign — comes just three weeks before a key political meeting where President Xi Jinping is expected to secure an unprecedented third term.

The court said former politician Fu had abused his power while in a range of senior positions from 2005 to 2021.

“(He is) deprived of political rights for life and all personal property should be confiscated,” it added.

Fu, 67, had accepted bribes worth over 117 million yuan ($16.5 million), the court said.

Between 2014 and 2015, when Fu was head of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, the court said he hid evidence of suspected crimes committed by his brother, Fu Weihua, and failed to handle the case in accordance with the law.

Anti-corruption drive

During his tenure as Beijing’s top cop, Fu is thought to have led the corruption investigation into Zhou Yongkang, the former security chief who was jailed in 2015 in one of the anti-graft campaign’s most high-profile cases.

Fu was a member of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission and the minister of justice before entering semi-retirement in May 2020.

He was serving as the deputy director of the social and legal affairs committee on the standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) — a largely ceremonial advisory body — when anti-graft authorities launched an investigation into his dealings last October.

More than a million officials have been punished under the anti-corruption campaign, which critics say has also served as a means to remove Xi’s political enemies since he came to power in 2013.

The Chinese leader has accelerated the pace of the anti-graft campaign in the run-up to the party congress in mid-October.

Three former police chiefs, all accused of graft, were given harsh sentences for corruption on Wednesday.

Gong Daoan, former police chief of Shanghai; Deng Huilin, former police chief of Chongqing; and Liu Xinyun, former police chief of coal-rich Shanxi province, were sentenced in separate courts in Hebei province.

Gong, former deputy mayor and director of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, was given a life sentence for accepting bribes worth 73.43 million yuan ($10.4 million), state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Deng, the former director of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau, was jailed for 15 years for taking 42.67 million yuan ($6 million) in bribes, CCTV said.

Liu, the former top cop in Shanxi was imprisoned for 14 years for taking bribes worth 13.33 million ($1.9 million), CCTV reported.

Source: AFP

21, September 2022

St Mary Church Crisis: A ransom has been requested for the 9 people kidnapped ⁰

If we speak with the government, the secessionists accuse us of being pro-government; if we talk to the secessionists, the government accuses us of being with the secessionists.

The kidnapping of nine people in the attack on the church of Saint Mary, in the village of Nchang (see Fides, 19/9/2022) has been revealed a kidnapping for ransom. Msgr. Andrew Nkea Fuanya, Archbishop of Bamenda, stated this, affirming that the kidnappers have demanded a ransom. Monsignor Nkea added that there are groups that see the Church as an “easy target to make money”.

We remember that on the night of Friday, September 16, an armed group attacked and set fire to the church of Saint Mary, kidnapping five priests, a nun and three lay people (a catechist, a cook and a young woman) after the ambush.

Since 2016, the northwestern and southwestern regions of Cameroon have been in the grip of a bloody conflict between the English-speaking separatists and the military of the French-speaking majority state.

The violence has claimed more than 6,000 lives and displaced about one million people.

At the beginning of September, Bishop Nkea, who until May was apostolic administrator of the diocese of Mamfe (where the town of Nchang is located) and president of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, called for an intervention by the international community, which “seems having forgotten the English-speaking crisis”. “We try to encourage priests, men and women religious to continue to operate in the two English-speaking regions – he reported in an interview with the French section of Vatican News – but we Bishops receive daily messages that threaten our dialogue efforts: if we speak with the government, the secessionists accuse us of being pro-government; if we talk to the secessionists, the government accuses us of being with the secessionists. It is a delicate situation, but the Bishops must continue to mediate between the parties”.

Culled (Agenzia Fides,

21, September 2022

Exiled Southern Cameroons leader hails Amba fighters ⁰

With the appointment of General Bouba Dobékréo and the deployment of Cameroon government’s Special Forces, Yaoundé has finally informed the international community that it has miserably failed in its devastating war against British Southern Cameroonians, said the exiled leader of the Ambazonia Interim Government Vice President Dabney Yerima.

“Our so-called French speaking brothers, through scores of military deployments and operations, arbitrary arrests and detentions, rape, murder and arrogance, want to weaken and force the Ambazonian nation to surrender. For five years, they have been trying to sap Ambazonia morale and create a sense of despair and complete defeat among the people of Southern Cameroons,” Dabney Yerima said in an interview with Cameroon Intelligence Report.

Dabney Yerima added, “Now that the Southern Cameroons comedy in Maryland USA has finally come to an end, with the support of the diaspora, the Ambazonia Interim Government will boost Ground Zero willpower, seriousness, and sense of responsibility and the French Cameroun enemy will get more frustrated, Yaoundé will feel heavily feeble, and will be eventually left with no option but to admit defeat and leave our homeland.”

Yerima highlighted that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has put up fierce resistance against La Republique du Cameroun’s criminal acts and cruelty for five years and will continue to resist until independence is gotten.

Yaoundé waged the war on Southern Cameroons in 2016 to continue with the Francophone hegemony and crush the Ambazonia resistance.

The war, however, has stopped well short of all of its goals due to the Southern Cameroons resistance, despite killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and turning the entire British Southern Cameroons territory into the scene of Africa’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“89-year-old Biya and his ruling Francophone CPDM gang, faced with Ambazonian infinite patience, have reached a dead end and suffered a humiliating defeat. Francophones in the Far North, Littoral, North, Central and South and in the West have realized such a fact, and it is now the talk of the town,” Yerima asserted.

“While the French Cameroun criminals backed by Paris have failed to achieve their goals and suffered failures in their bids against Southern Cameroons, the Ambazonian nation has recorded glorious victories. This aggression on Southern Cameroons is already providing a sound reason for the Federal Republic of Ambazonia as a nation to exercise patience and carry on its struggle,” Yerima told Cameroon Intelligence Report.

Elsewhere in the CIR conversation, Vice President Dabney Yerima said the UN and the European Union must take practical steps for peace in a way that would benefit the people of Southern Cameroons. The Ambazonian nation, having endured enormous suffering, deserves all forms of support, Yerima concluded.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

20, September 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Ambazonia Interim Government honours journalist Wazizi ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has paid tribute to journalist Samuel Wazizi who was killed by Francophone army soldiers while in Cameroon government custody in the capital, Yaoundé, on August 17, 2019.

Dabney Yerima and his entire war cabinet praised the sacrifices of Samuel Wazizi and other Southern Cameroons journalists including reporters, cameramen, technicians and other workers in the Anglophone media sector presently in detention centers in French Cameroun.

In a soul-searching speech, Vice President Dabney Yerima told the family and relatives of the late Samuel Wazizi that they should all be proud that their son’s blood is one of the main reasons why Ambazonians were still in the struggle and resisting French Cameroun military occupation.

News anchor and camera operator Samuel Wazizi, whose legal name was Samuel Ajiekha Abuwe, died in government custody in Yaoundé, on August 17, 2019, according to a statement released on June 5, 2020, by the Francophone dominated Cameroonian military.

Despite knowing the dangers of reporting on the war in Southern Cameroons, many Anglophone journalists are risking their lives to report the truth of events. Many have been arrested and detained defending the principles of journalism and showing responsibility in conveying what truly is happening in Ground Zero.

By Isong Asu with files from Chi Prudence Asong

20, September 2022

National mourning ends in Britain after queen’s funeral ⁰

Flags on government buildings returned to full mast and an epic clean-up operation was underway on Tuesday as British public life resumed after the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, although the royal family remains in mourning for another week.

Around a quarter of a million people queued round the clock to view the queen’s coffin as it lay in state in the days leading up to the funeral, the UK government said.

Liz Truss, appointed prime minister by the queen just two days before she died on September 8, flew to the UN General Assembly hours after delivering a biblical reading at the lavish funeral.

En route to New York, Truss praised the “huge outpouring of love and affection” shown towards the late monarch, as well as the “huge amount of warmth towards” her successor, King Charles III.

Charles, 73, and his family will remain in mourning for another seven days.

That means no official engagements after he spent an exhausting week touring his new kingdom and attending to the ornate pageantry of a role that he has spent a lifetime preparing to take on.

The royal Twitter account published a picture of the queen hiking in 1971 at her Scottish retreat of Balmoral, where she died at the age of 96 as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

The photograph was accompanied with the words: “May flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest. In loving memory of Her Majesty The Queen.”

The quotation is from the tragic conclusion of Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” and was said by Charles in his first national broadcast as king the day after his mother passed away.

Dramas old and new

Members of parliament were taking an oath of allegiance to their new sovereign on Tuesday, as political life resumed after 10 days of government mourning.

Following a public holiday for the funeral, business life was also resuming, and workers were busy clearing up the debris left by an estimated million-plus people who lined the streets of London on Monday.

The queen’s coffin was on display from Wednesday to early Monday inside parliament’s cavernous Westminster Hall, and the waiting time for public mourners at one point reached 25 hours.

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan told Sky News her government department was still “crunching the numbers”, but she believed that around 250,000 people had passed through the hall in total.

Donelan said she did not know the final cost of the state funeral at Westminster Abbey, which entailed a vast security operation for hundreds of foreign dignitaries.

But she said the British public would agree that it “was money well spent”.

“You saw so many thousands out there and I don’t think anybody can suggest that our late monarch didn’t deserve that send-off, given the duty and the selfless service that she committed to over 70 years.”

National Grid said there was a drop-off of two gigawatts in usage on Britain’s power network — the equivalent of 200 million lightbulbs being switched off — from 10:30 am to 11:00 am (0930 to 1000 GMT) on Monday.

Disunited kingdom

“This was because people were stopping their usual activities in time for the funeral,” a spokesman told AFP.

Usage picked up again by 500 megawatts during the funeral but dropped off again by the same amount during the two minutes’ silence just before noon.

With the departure of the only monarch most Britons had ever known, attention was turning back to the country’s soaring inflation problem and the crisis stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

There are also deeper fissures over the very future of the United Kingdom, as Scotland’s nationalist government agitates for another referendum on independence, and as Northern Ireland turns majority-Catholic for the first time.

“Is it possible that in the Windsor vault now lies buried the person who, more than any other, served to cohere these islands?” commentator Jonathan Freedland wrote in The Guardian newspaper.

“The last 10 days have been a holiday from the usual political polarisation: admiration for the queen was one of the few things most people could agree on,” he said.

For most UK media, the focus remained on the unquestionable grandeur with which the country and the world bade adieu to Elizabeth.

“An outpouring of love,” the Daily Telegraph headlined, above a picture of Charles draping military colours held in life by his mother over her coffin in Windsor Castle.

Source: AFP

19, September 2022

Archbishop of Canterbury praises queen’s service to UK and Commonwealth ⁰

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Monday praised Queen Elizabeth II’s life of duty and service to the UK and Commonwealth at the state funeral for Britain’s longest-serving monarch. “People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are still rarer. But in all cases those who serve will be loved and remembered when those who cling to power and privileges are forgotten,” he said in his funeral sermon.

Culled from France 24