The long drawn crisis in the two English-speaking North West and South West regions has already caused a lot of devastation since late 2017 when political differences between the government and separatist groups fighting for independence of the former British Southern Cameroons morphed into an armed conflict.

On January 16, 2023, Human Rights Watch, which has been monitoring the conflict since its start, reported that: “In 2022, armed groups and government forces committed human rights abuses including unlawful killings across Cameroon’s English-speaking regions…”.

It further stated that: “at least 6,000 civilians have been killed by both government forces and armed separatist fighters”.

The atrocities of the armed conflict have affected people, schools, businesses and just everybody or sphere of life. But the most harrowing thing about the crisis, as it persists without any end in sight, is that business persons and their businesses are becoming the unfortunate targets.

On the one hand, government forces have been directing their attacks on business persons on the excuse that some of them are secretly using their money to finance separatist fighters against the state forces. While on the other hand, the separatist fighters have targeted and killed several business persons with their own story being that their targets, though helpless in most cases, have not been supporting their struggle for what they call the liberation of Ambazonia from foreign occupation, being the government of Cameroon.

However, the most prominent excuse by the separatist fighters or Amba boys, as they are also known, has been the fact that those targeted have not been respecting Monday days which they had imposed as a non-working or ‘ghost town’ day.

Monday, in Cameroon, is officially a working day.

Separatists’ imposition of ghost town days

But since the Anglophone crisis degenerated into an armed conflict in 2017, the Anglophone separatists took a very controversial decision by declaring that Mondays, across the two English-speaking regions, be observed unequivocally as non-working or ghost town days.

By this declaration, all businesses on this day are to remain shut, offices and schools all closed as everyone, too, is expected to stay indoors. And it’s been awfully so for the past seven years.

They argued that this was to force the government to capitulate and come for peace talks or negotiations.

But in response, the government has instead been bent on ensuring that the people don’t respect this day as imposed by the separatists. They have argued that it’s killing businesses and putting the government and the economies of these two regions into more hardship.

Thus, those caught in this dilemma are the business persons within the two regions who have either had to be killed, kidnapped or attacked by separatist fighters because they decided to open their businesses on Mondays in disrespect of the said imposed ghost town day. Or be arrested by Government forces on the one hand for respecting this day as well as many others being made to pay huge fines to the government for failing to open their businesses on Mondays. In this dire situation, many have fallen victim to the bullet either shot by the government forces or the separatists.

There is a case as reported on May 29, 2020, by Cameroon News Agency, of one trader at Mulang in Bamenda, North West Region, who happened to have been killed by separatist fighters, apparently for failing to respect ghost towns and for his alleged collaboration with the military.

“Lambert was killed a few days after another civilian popularly known as Fat Joe was murdered in the same neighbourhood…They were both accused of collaborating with security forces,” CNA reported.

The killings, kidnappings and disappearances of businessmen both by separatists and government forces is becoming a real issue in the two regions.

This reporter is privy to information on the case of one Fonjiyang Remi Mumbara, a 29-year-old university graduate, who is said to have been whisked off from his business shop at Mankon, in downtown Bamenda, sometime in November 2023.

He is said to have been picked up by the military at his shop.

He is said to have been running the small provision store for some five years with his cousin named Fonyijang Mofor Harrisson since his graduation from the University in 2017.

Fonjiyang Remi’s uncle, who is said to have been the one who gave him a loan as startup capital for his business, after he left university, spoke to us with deep sadness.

He disclosed that the military came and arrested Remi and ferried him to detention at a gendarmerie brigade, where he was tortured and detained under inhuman conditions.

With tears streaming down his cheeks, he said further that, few day  later after Fonjiyang Remi was taken away from his shop, another patrol team of government soldiers came by, caught his cousin, Mofor Fonjiyang, who was now left in the shop, shot him to death, point blank and set the store ablaze.

Fonjiyang Remi’s uncle said they presume the military killed Mofor and took Remi away on the excuse that they have been colluding with the Amba boys by selling food items to the Amba boys and, therefore, energising them to fight the military.

It’s an excuse that is very unacceptable and a blatant abuse of rights because, it’s difficult for a business person to tell or determine his customers identities, when selling.

But since the Government imposed an anti-terrorism law in Cameroon in 2014, the military has been conducting the war in the North West and South West with reckless abandon. It has, backed by the above said law, been committing a lot of abuses by way of arbitrarily killings, of suspects, burnings of houses or unjustified arrests and so on.

Meantime, on the other hand, the separatist fighters haven’t been any different.

Fonjiyang Remi’s uncle further disclosed that Remi had equally complained to them about threats that he had been getting from the Amba boys. He said he had, before the military arrested him, informed them how the Amba boys had called him on a certain Friday, November 10, 2023, and threatened to come and assassinate him on the excuse that he, Fonjiyang Remi, had been disrespecting their Monday’s ghost town days.

Asked why Remi wasn’t respecting the said imposed ghost town Mondays, his uncle said, Remi, since he opened the business shop, had become the sole bread winner for the family. And given the difficult economic situation in the two English-speaking regions as a consequence of the long drawn armed conflict, most people have been depending but on small businesses for their survival.

But the growing attacks and threats on the business persons in Bamenda, especially, has made it such that these persons have become more or less endangered species.

Meanwhile, we gathered that after being detained by the military for about  a week at  Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaounde, Fonjiyang Remi is said to have escaped from detention under circumstances that remain unclear. Since then, his whereabouts is not known.

The military is said to have launched a manhunt for him, and constantly storms their family house looking for him.

If re-arrested, Fonjiyang Remi Mumbara will be tried in a military tribunal under the anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment is the death sentence. That is if he is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extrajudicial killings, within the context of the armed conflict in North West and South West Regions.

Many businessmen fleeing

It should be noted that the situation in the crisis-hit regions has forced many business persons, of late, to flee for their own safety; some fleeing even out of Cameroon to other safer countries around the world.

International human right groups have already reported of thousands who have already left Cameroon and are seeking protection in foreign countries owing to the crisis in the North West and South West regions. Besides, there is a general air of violence across the country as politicians are, currently, already jostling to see who will replace Cameroon’s 91-year-old head of state, Paul Biya, who has held power for over 41 years.

Thus, the months ahead could spark even a direr situation across Cameroon as opposition leaders are fighting tooth and nail to replace the 91-year-old incumbent by 2025 when elections are expected. But his supporters are battling to maintain him on seat so as to protect their interests. But many don’t just want to have another seven years under a leader who is considered already long overdue in a country where people retire at 60.

Thus, the general atmosphere in Cameroon doesn’t promise to be stable anytime soon.

The post Military, separatists targeting businessmen as armed conflict in NW, SW rages appeared first on THE SUN NEWSPAPER CAMEROON.

As the crisis in the North West and South West regions, which has escalated into an armed conflict, rages on, many people including businessmen and women, have been bearing the brunt.

These businessmen and women have found themselves caught between accusations from the defence and security forces and the Ambazonia separatist fighters.

Some of the businessmen and women who are accused by the military of sympathising with separatists are arrested, tortured and detained under deplorable conditions. Some have reported died in detention under unclear circumstances. Meanwhile, those who are accused by the separatist fighters have been killed by the Amba boys.

One of such who has gone through the ordeal is Alobwede Donald Ebong, a university graduate who had engaged in business.

After obtaining a degree in Banking and Finance, Alobwede began a petty business in his village in Kupe-Muanenguba Division of the South West Region. He bought items in Loum, Moungo Division of the Littoral Region, which he then sold in Kupe-Muanenguba Division to make profit and earn a living.

Alobwede and other businessmen and women often bribed their way through checkpoints mounted by both the military and Ambazonia fighters along the road to and from Loum.

However, sometime after, the military along the Loum-Tombel road began accusing Alobwede and other businessmen and women of acting as spies for the separatist fighters, questioning how they went along the road with their goods and money without being abducted by the separatist fighters.

When separatist fighters launched an attack on October 1, 2021, Alobwede is said to have been traveling along that stretch of road. He and other business persons were arrested by soldiers. They were tortured and whisked to Loum, where they were detained under deplorable conditions. The businessmen and women, including Alobwede Donald Ebong, were accused of having been supporting separatist fighters financially and providing them information on military movements.

Nonetheless, Alobwede was later released under conditions that remain unclear.

But for fear of his life, Alobwede, shortly after, went underground. The military is said to have been searching for him. A summons is reported to have been sent to his father’s house, calling on him to report at the gendarmerie brigade for interrogation.

Meanwhile, on August 10, 2023, soldiers are said to have stormed his father’s house, looking for him. The soldiers are said to have said Alobwede is being accused of having been providing information and financial support to separatist fighters.

If arrested Alobwede Donald Ebong will be tried in a military tribunal under the anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment is the death sentence. That is if he is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extrajudicial killings.

It should be recalled that in September 2017 a businessman in Belo Sub-division, Boyo Division of the North West Region, popularly known as Sam Sawyer, who was crippled and on a wheelchair, was killed after the military stormed his premises. He had been accused of having separatist fighters at his shop.

The lifeless body of Sam Sawyer was later seen, beheaded, in videos and pictures that went viral on social media.

Meanwhile, on November 4, 2021 a businessman and contractor, Wara Eric, and two others had been killed in Bamenda by gunmen suspected to be Ambazonia fighters. The heavily armed gunmen had attacked and killed the businessman including two other people.

It was around midday when the gunmen stopped a car Wara and the others were in at Mbingfibie neighbourhood in Bamenda, fired bullets, ripping three of its occupants.

Wara Eric was the contractor who had just won a contract at the Bamenda II council. He also owned a bar in Bamenda.

“He had been warned several times by non-state armed groups to discontinue the contract and stop selling brewery products from Les Brasseries du Cameroun,” a source had been quoted as having said.

Another witness said, “no one can say for sure who shot them, but speculation is that they were killed by separatist fighters”.

Wara Eric was in the car with his younger brother and two others. His brother allegedly escaped with a bullet wound on his hand. Two others, one identified as welder, died. They are said to have gone to the Council to carry out estimates.

However, another source was quoted as having claimed: “Seeing what happened the last time in Below Foncha, it is believed that Government forces dressed in mufti carried out the attack. We know their modus operandi when an oncoming car approaches. But then we are all confused here in Bamenda. The situation is terrible”.

As the armed conflict continues, the populations of the two crisis-hit regions have been decrying atrocities reportedly committed by both the military and separatist fighters. International organisations and other western powers have called on the government to address the root cause through genuine and inclusive dialogue.

The post Businessmen, women bearing brunt of armed conflict in NW, SW appeared first on THE SUN NEWSPAPER CAMEROON.

Since the Anglophone Crisis erupted in the North West and South West five years back, investigative reporting by most human rights body, non-governmental organizations have on one platform criticized the extrajudicial killings of mainly the security personnel, on innocent citizens like children and pregnant women, burning of homes. Incidentally, the numbers indicate that as many as 5000 lives of civilians have been lost under the conflict-of-arms and as many as 730000 have been uprooted, with most enduring miserable lives in neighboring Nigeria. The murders of innocent civilians by the military in Cameroon’s North West Region Ngarbuh village were universally condemned across the board by the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioners for Human Rights, the European Union, the USA, UK, France, and the Nobel Women’s Initiative.

One should note that on the 14th of February, 2020 the Cameroonian army with the help of 30 armed fulani militiamen, stormed the village of Ngarbuh and killed 21 civilians including 13 children and a pregnant woman. The government never blamed SCNC members along with other Anglophone activists in diaspora for engendering the Anglophone crisis.

The ex and current Ministers of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakari and Rene Emmanuel Sadi respectively have on many excursions emphasized that; the government will not bargain or negotiate with terrorists. Sources have revealed that, the government is using its diplomatic networks to ensure that Southern Cameroon National Council,  SCNC, a secessionist group advocating for the independence of Southern Cameroon, activists and other Anglophone activists abroad are tracked down and extradited.

Despite the reported strong facts by New York Times Journal and corroborated by Human Rights Watch, the New Humanitarian Cameroonian Civil Society Organisation and Catholic Church attributing blame to the Cameroon army for the massacre the government has officially rejected her involvement in the Ngarbuh killings.

Despite all these, the government after issuing a list of Anglophone activists in the Diaspora targeted for arrest sometime ago, sources show a fresh list of SCNC members and other activists outside the country has been set up for arrest; more than a hundred names are said to have been passed over to intelligence. Among the activists   who appear in government blacklist, and in queue for arrest every time they enter Cameroon are Samuel Nkwi Munah and other members including: Ivo Kuka, Catherine Yambo, Omawah Elenor Charlotte Oyebog, and Alain Bougan.

The case of Samuel Nkwi Munah of Boyo Division of the North West Region of Cameroon is a pitiful one.

Reports show on the basis of the injustices endured by the people of the North West and South West Regions and also on the fact that his brother was killed by the army and his house burnt to ashes leaving his wife and four children without a home in 2017 he embarked on joining the dream of the total independence of Southern Cameroons. This decision to partake in the struggle for independence of former British Southern Cameroons landed Samuel in trouble as he was hunted by the authorities and in June 2022, based on family sources, Samuel Nkwi was arrested by security operatives in Kumba, molested tortured and subjected to harsh and inhuman detention conditions for five days.

Though released, Samuel never relaxed his efforts to make sure that the quest for total independence of the former British Southern Cameroon is achieved.

THE SUN learnt that, Samuel Nkwi was later arrested along with others on April 2023, following a meeting in their locality to undertake sensitization on precautionary measures regarding the crisis. He was tortured seriously and detained in degrading inhumane conditions. Following his release after intense financial negotiations, sources revealed that he went underground immediately in fear of the unknown especially with the barbaric treatment of Anglophone activists by the military. As went to press, sources have reported that there is military searchlight on Samuel Nkwi Munah as he has been declared Wanted across the National territory

The country is currently not considered safe by the majority of Anglophones abroad who are liable to be arrested or killed should they return to the country.

While the Anglophone crisis escalates, International Organisations and other Western countries have called on the Government to address the origin of the crisis through dialogue as well, too, the Government has been called upon by top Anglophone lawyer and human rights activist, Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla, to negotiate, and to release all Anglophones who are illegally detained and imprisoned. French President Emmanuel Macron recently promised to exert “maximum pressure” on Cameroon President Paul Biya, to stop Cameroon’s deplorable Human Rights violations.

The post Armed–conflict in NW, SW: Gov’t intensifies crack down on activists home, abroad appeared first on THE SUN NEWSPAPER CAMEROON.

More and more youths in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon are increasingly being threatened and coerced to join separatist fighters commonly called “Amba boys” as tension heightens in the two restive English speaking regions. Reports are becoming very prevalent of youths who are either molested, flogged, or threatened with deaths if they don’t joined the Amba boys, fighting for a separate state termed Ambazonia.
What has become known as the Anglophone crisis, started as a strike action in November 2016 by lawyers and teachers in the North West and South West regions. The teachers and lawyers stood up against government’s attempt to assimilate the educational system. This strike moved from one stage to another, and has today metamorphosed into a serious conflict, and deadly clashes between the Cameroon defence forces and the separatist fighters.

National and international media reports hold that over 3000 persons have been killed, hundreds arrested and thousands of others escaping into neighbouring Nigeria or bushes in search of refuge. In the midst of this, the Cameroon Government, on the one hand, has not yielded to national and international calls for an inclusive dialogue; they are instead calling on separatist fighters to lay down their arms and return to normal life. Separatist fighters on the other hand have become resolute in their strive to having an independent state of Ambazonia, and have embarked on recruiting more youths to fight the regime in power.
Youths, who refuse to join the fighters are either threatened with death, molested or termed “black legs”. This is forcing many Cameroonians from North West and South West regions to vacate the Country for fear of being victimised.
One of the youths victimised by this coercive approach of getting fighters by the Amba boys, whose where-about remains unknown, is Samuel Lembah Wange from Tiko in the South West Region. The Sun has it on good record that separatist fighters stormed his neighbourhood repeatedly in May and June 2019 recruiting young boys to join them in fighting for “the liberation of Southern Cameroons” but Mr. Wange, like a few other youths, refused to comply. According to reports, the fighters were furious and warned Samuel that the only safe place for him is their “camp”.
The SUN gathered that, in May 2019, Government forces stormed Tiko and carted away with youths suspected to have joined the separatists to their post, where they were flogged mercilessly before being detained under dehumanising conditions. According to family sources, the uniform men also visited late Pa Lembah’s family in search of Samuel Lembah Wange, who wasn’t around on that fateful day.
The SUN later got it from reliable source that, as a result of the threat from both the separatist fighters and government security forces, Wange Samuel left Tiko for an unknown destination. Meanwhile, neighbours have testified that separatist fighters and military forces have been repeatedly seen around their family house.
It should be noted that any one recruited as a separatist fighter is forced to take an oath of allegiance till death, while those arrested in connection with Anglophone crisis, whether guilty or not, are immediately termed “terrorists” with the possibility of being tried in a military court. The cry of many is that the Cameroon Government harkens to calls for an inclusive and sincere dialogue for the crisis to be resolved so, things can return to normalcy in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon.

The post Anglophone crisis: More youths under threat to join separatist fighters as crisis persists appeared first on THE SUN NEWSPAPER CAMEROON.

Teachers and other civilians of various walks of life such as nurses, business persons and lawyers are bearing the brunt as the Anglophone crisis, which has escalated into an armed conflict in the North West and South West regions, rages on.

Many teachers, who have been accused of being among those organising strike actions carried out by teachers, are being arrested. The separatists have also imposed a school boycott all over the North West and South West regions. Teachers who violate this ban and go to school to teacher, are being abducted by separatist fighters, and are either killed or are only set free after the payment of huge amounts of money as ransom.

Meanwhile, teachers who respect the school boycott and do not go to school to teach, are being accused by the government of being terrorists and siding with the separatists or are sympathizers of the separatists’ cause and struggle for the independence of a country they have christened Ambazonia.

Sources say the arrested persons are being tortured and detained under inhumane conditions. Some are reported to have died in detention.

For fear of their lives, many have fled and their whereabouts is not known. One case is that of Martin Neba Ngwator, who was a teacher in Cameroon College of Commerce (CCC) Kumba, Meme Division of the South West Region. Neba is said to have, in January 2017, been involved in the nationwide teachers strike.

However, his ordeal became worse when he respected the school boycott imposed by separatists. Nonetheless, after about six months, the principal of his school is said to have threatened him, forcing Neba to return to school in May 2017 to teach.

But Neba’s decision to go to school and teach did not auger will with separatist fighters, who tagged him a “blackleg” and marked him for death.

Nonetheless, due to mounting insecurity and frequent crossfires between the military and separatist fighters, Neba later abandoned teaching.

It is believed that the principal of the school where Neba taught, after mounting pressure on him to return to teaching to no avail, forwarded Neba’s name to the authorities as one of the teachers siding with the separatists by respecting school boycott.

Neba is said to have fled from Kumba, after which his family’s house was burnt down in August 2018, and a neighbour burnt to death. His brothers, sisters and other relatives are said to have also fled into the bush and their whereabouts is not known till date.

But sometime in early September 2018 when Neba paid a visit to Kumba, he was arrested by a group of gendarmes and soldiers of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR, of the military. He was tortured severely and detained at the gendarmerie brigade. Neba was later released under conditions which remain unclear.

After mass protests in North West and South West Regions for a boycott of the October 7, 2018 presidential election, in November 2018, news is said to have circulated that a warrant of arrest had been issued for Neba. He is said to have, for fear of his life, fled. Since then, his whereabouts is not known.

If the separatist fighters lay hands on him, Martin Neba will certainly be killed, like many others who have suffered from atrocities committed by separatist fighters.

Meanwhile, if arrested by the defence and security forces, Martin Neba Ngwator will be tried in a military tribunal, under the anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment if the death penalty. That is if he is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extra-judicial killings.

Origin of crisis

It is also worth recalling that the Anglophone crisis, something that pundits say had been brewing for several years, boiled over recently, when Common Law Lawyers in the North West and South West regions went on strike. They were demanding for the return of the federal system of government, redeployment of Civil Law Magistrates back to Civil Law Courts in French Cameroon, among other grievances. Not long after, teachers in the North West and South West regions also went on strike, demanding for the redress of several issues concerning the English system of education.

Things, however, got worst when Anglophones in both regions, who had been fed up with the unfavourable political and economic situation of the country, the use of French as the dominant and official language, and the marginalisation of the Anglophones, joined the strike.

The crisis has left thousands, both civilians and security and defence forces dead, some 400,000 displaced with some living in bushes while over 30,000 have fled to neighbouring Nigeria where they are living as refugees.

Many houses, and even whole villages, have been burnt down in the crisis-hit regions.

The separatist leader of the self-declared Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, and eight other close associates of his, who were arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon, are currently at the Kondengui maximum security prison in Yaounde, from where they have been attending trial at the Yaounde military tribunal.

Many other activists such as Mancho Bibixy, Penn Terrence, Tsi Conrad, among others, are serving jail terms at the Kondengui prison.

While the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate, international organisations and other western powers have called on the government to address the root cause through genuine and inclusive dialogue.

The post Anglophone crisis: Teachers, others bear brunt as armed conflict in NW, SW rages on appeared first on THE SUN NEWSPAPER CAMEROON.