"Unions were complaining of being a bit marginalised and said they were discriminated against because of the (English) language"

By Sylvain Andzongo

YAOUNDE, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Security forces in Cameroon arrested about 100 people during days of protests over alleged discrimination against minority English-speaking people, Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary and a senior security source said on Wednesday.

Bakary said vandals who mingled with the demonstrators smashed shops in the northwestern town of Bamenda during the protests during which one person was killed.

A second security source said the demonstrators also wanted independence for Cameroon's two English speaking regions and the departure of President Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982 and is one of Africa's longest serving rulers.

French is spoken in eight of Cameroon's 10 regions and English in the northwestern and southwestern regions.

Bakary said reinforcements in Bamenda were helping security forces return the situation to normal. He said the protests posed no threat to Biya.

"Unions were complaining of being a bit marginalised and said they were discriminated against because of the (English) language," Bakary told Reuters.

"There are some politicians who are using the situation as a tool for leverage to pursue their own interests," he said, noting that the government was open to dialogue and ministers had met for talks to work out how to resolve the problem.

Reuters television footage of Bamenda on Tuesday showed security forces scouring the streets for protesters, and several barricades and one avenue blocked by flames in the market area.

A woman walking with two young children stopped in her tracks at the sound of a gunshot. It also showed residents fleeing as riot police and soldiers marched through almost deserted streets.

It was not immediately possible to contact residents or union members - who had organised the protests - in the town.

(Additional reporting by Matthew Mpoke Bigg in Accra; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. </s> File image.

Yaoundé - At least 80 inmates in Cameroon's restive English-speaking northwest escaped after gunmen stormed their prison overnight, an informed source told AFP Wednesday. "There were about a hundred people in the prison and at least 80 have gone," said a source close to security forces in the town of Wum, more than 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of the regional centre Bamenda.

"The gunmen attacked under cover of darkness," the source said, using a ladder to scale the rear wall before battering down the prisoners' cell doors.

English-speaking separatists want to create an independent state, Ambazonia and vow that a presidential election slated for October 7 will not go ahead in their regions.

Eight candidates are running against 85-year-old incumbent Paul Biya, who has ruled the country for 35 years and is seeking a seventh straight term in office.

Separatists say they have suffered years of discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority in Cameroon, and two years of violence in western English-speaking regions have killed hundreds of people and displaced about 200,000.

According to International Crisis Group, 170 members of the security forces and "at least 400 civilians" have died in the conflict. Separatists have not issued a reliable toll.

AFP </s> Opposition leaders have been arrested and the internet has been cut in English-speaking regions for more than a week.

Cameroon's main language is French, but about a fifth of the country's 22 million people are English speakers.

They are concentrated in the country's northwest and southwest regions, which were colonised by Britain.

English speakers have long complained of discrimination.

They say that official documents are always in French and that the language barrier disqualifies them from most government jobs.

Some support breaking away to form their own state.

In recent weeks opposition leaders from the English-speaking regions have been arrested.

Thousands of English-speaking teachers, lawyers and students have gone on strike to protest against alleged marginalisation.

In response, internet service in English-speaking areas was cut off more than a week ago.

That, in turn, has led to a new campaign using the hashtag "Bring Back Our Internet".

The government says that the internet blackout and arrests of political leaders are necessary to maintain peace.

So, what does this mean for Cameroon?



Presenter: Richelle Carey

Guests:

Elvis Ngolle Ngolle - Former Minister of Special Duties in the Office of the President of Cameroon.

Julie Owono - Head of the Internet Desk at Internet Without Borders.

Albert Nchinda - Political Analyst.

Source: Al Jazeera News </s> YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — Cameroon’s military has killed at least 30 separatists in two days of intense fighting in the turbulent English-speaking North West region, a military spokesman said Wednesday. The military freed people held…

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — Cameroon’s military has killed at least 30 separatists in two days of intense fighting in the turbulent English-speaking North West region, a military spokesman said Wednesday.

The military freed people held by separatists during its two-day operation, military spokesman Col. Didier Badjeck said Wednesday. Fighting was intense in the Mayo Binka area near Nkambe, he said. While no soldiers have been killed, he said the death toll for armed separatists may increase, as fighters escape into the bush.

In a separate incident, the mayor of Nwa, a local council in the same region, was found dead Wednesday and he is believed to have been killed by separatists, said Emmanuel Bunyui, the mayor of the nearby town of Ndu. Many mayors in English-speaking regions have been targeted by armed separatists demanding an independent English-speaking state, which they call Ambazonia.

“When we hoist the Cameroon flag in the council premises, we are targeted by the armed men who insist that we should instead display their blue and white flag,” Bunyui said.

These incidents have highlighted the separatist unrest in Cameroon, which began in 2016, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers in the northwest and southwest staged demonstrations calling for reforms, criticizing what they called the marginalization of the Anglophone population, which accounts for about one-fifth of the country’s 25 million people.

Violence increased after factions of separatists armed themselves following a government clampdown on protests in 2017. Armed separatists have vowed to destabilize the regions and hundreds of civilians have been killed and dozens of schools have been burned and teachers threatened.

In the past year, more than 1,200 people including separatists, police, military and gendarmes have been killed in the fighting, according to military spokesman Badjeck.

Recently 79 students and three staff were kidnapped from a school by suspected separatists, and they have all now been released.

More than 100 civilians have escaped the violence and fled to the capital, Yaounde.

“I am just going to nowhere. I am afraid,” said Kenneth Kongyu, 19, who joined 75 other people who walked 60 kilometers (37 miles) for two days to escape violence in Ndu, Bunyui’s town. “When they come to the market, they shoot from every angle.”

Tatah Oscar, 17, said he is a former fighter. He said many young Cameroonians are joining the separatists because their families have been killed by military “so they don’t have somebody to count on again … I am pleading on the government to try and solve the problem so that we the youths we can go back to school.”

Col. Badjeck, however, said “Most of the time the terrorists operate and hide among civilians and the world has an impression that civilians are being killed, but our military is professional.”

In November last year, Cameroonian President Paul Biya declared the crisis a war. Biya was re-elected to his seventh term in October, although few votes were cast in war-torn Anglophone regions.

Politicians have repeatedly called on Biya to initiate dialogue to stem the violence. The 85-year-old president, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, has repeatedly stated that Cameroon is one and indivisible and that he is not ready to negotiate.

The conflict poses a serious challenge for Cameroon, a close U.S. security ally in combating extremism and a new member of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The United Nations have condemned both the Cameroon military and separatists for using unnecessary and excessive force and Amnesty International criticized the “horrific escalation of violence” in English-speaking regions.

Nearly a quarter-million more people have fled the ongoing violence, many leaving their homes on foot with their belongings teetering on their heads.

Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. </s> YAOUNDE, Cameroon
• Armed separatists kidnapped at least 79 students and three staff members from a Presbyterian school in a troubled English-speaking region of Cameroon, the governor said Monday.

North West Region Gov. Deben Tchoffo said the students abducted Sunday night were ages 11-17, and they were taken from Nkwen, a village near the regional capital, Bamenda, along with school staff that included the principal.

“It is rather unfortunate that this is happening, that 79 of our children and three of their staff can be picked up by terrorists,” Tchoffo said. “We have asked our military to do everything and bring back the kids alive.”

A video purporting to show the kidnapped students was posted on social media from a group of men who call themselves “Amba boys,” a reference to the state of Ambazonia that armed separatists want to establish in Cameroon’s Anglophone North West and South West regions.

In the video, men who identified themselves as the kidnappers forced several boys to give their names and those of their parents. The boys also said they were taken by the armed men late Sunday and didn’t know where they were being held.

The men in the video said they would only release the students once the goal of creating a new state is achieved.

“We shall only release you after the struggle. You will be going to school now here,” the men said. The video could not be independently verified, but parents said on social media they recognized their children in the recording.

Fighting between the military and separatists increased after the government clamped down on peaceful demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they said were their marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority.

The separatists have vowed to destabilize the regions as part of the strategy for creating a breakaway state. They have attacked civilians who do not support their cause, including teachers who were killed for disobeying orders to keep schools closed.

There have been kidnappings at other schools, but the group taken Sunday was the largest number abducted at one time in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions. The separatists also have set fire to at least 100 schools and driven out students and teachers from buildings taken over as training grounds.

“These appalling abductions show just how the general population is paying the highest price as violence escalates in the Anglophone region,” said Samira Daoud, Amnesty International deputy regional director for West and Central Africa. “The abduction of schoolchildren and teachers can never be justified.” </s> DOUALA, Cameroon - Twenty-five separatists were killed in fighting in a restive English-speaking region of Cameroon, security officials said Wednesday.

"Twenty-five 'Amba Boys' were killed in three clashes" on Tuesday in Mbot, a village near the town of Nkambe, a source in the capital Yaounde said, confirming a security source in the troubled Northwest Region.

"Amba Boys" refers to separatists who last year launched an armed campaign for the independence of Cameroon's two anglophone regions, which they call Ambazonia.

Photos obtained by AFP from a source close to the security services showed about 10 bodies lined up on the ground.

Weapons, mainly shotguns, were placed alongside.

A source close to the security services said the fighters had set up a base in a school in Mayo Binka, a few kilometres (miles) from Nkambe.

Two security officials told AFP that the armed forces did not suffer any losses in the clashes.

Eighty percent of Cameroon's population are French speakers while the rest are anglophones, who are concentrated in the country's west, in the Northwest and neighbouring Southwest Regions.

Years-long frustration at perceived discrimination fed demands for anglophone autonomy, which were rejected by the central government.

In 2017, radicals became ascendant in the anglophone movement and declared an independent state, the Republic of Ambazonia, which is not recognised internationally.

They have attacked troops and police and torched schools and other buildings deemed to be symbols of the central state.

The government, in response, has launched a brutal crackdown.

Fighting in the two regions has killed between 450 to 500 civilians, 185 members of the security forces and hundreds of armed separatists think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report this month.

"The Anglophone conflict is gradually turning into a civil war," it said.

According to an October update by the UN's refugee agency OCHA, there are a total of 437,000 people from the anglophone regions displaced within the country, while some 27,000 people have fled to Nigeria. </s> YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Separatist militants raided a prison in northwestern Cameroon and freed about 100 inmates, the government and separatists said on Thursday, as the rebels vowed to block next month’s presidential election in English-speaking regions.

President Paul Biya is expected to easily extend his 36-year rule in the Oct. 7 vote but the insurgency by Anglophone rebels has emerged as his government’s most serious challenge in years.

The separatists complain of discrimination against English speakers in the predominantly Francophone country and want to create an independent state called Ambazonia in the oil and cocoa-producing northwest and southwest regions.

Their hit-and-run raids have killed more than 160 members of Cameroon’s security forces in the past year, Amnesty International has said. State forces have also shot at civilians from helicopters, burned villages and killed residents, forcing thousands to flee.

Nchia Martin Achuo, the head of the Tigers of Ambazonia, a separatist group that says it has around 2,000 fighters, said his men had attacked the prison in the northwest town of Wum around 4 a.m. on Wednesday and freed 106 “innocent people”.

“There was a shootout between our boys and the prison guards,” he said. “I heard that they (government soldiers) have been arresting innocent people on the street. They are not criminals in that prison.”

Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary confirmed the separatists had freed about 100 prisoners but did not provide additional details.

Martin and the leader of another separatist group, Cho Ayaba, both vowed to prevent the presidential election from going ahead in Anglophone Cameroon. Separatists have set up check points blocking traffic on major roads, helping to paralyze activity across the region.

“There will be no election in Ambazonia,” Ayaba told Reuters. “We want to make sure there is no movement from Cameroon into Ambazonia, including election materials.”

The governments in the Anglophone regions have imposed curfews and other security restrictions in recent weeks in order to contain the violence and ensure the vote can take place.

Cameroon’s linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.

Biya has ruled virtually by decree since taking office in 1982. Of Africa’s living leaders, only Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has ruled uninterrupted for longer. </s> YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Cameroon's military says it has killed least 30 separatists in the past few days in the country's restive North West region.

Military spokesman Col. Didier Badjeck said Wednesday that figures may increase after intense fighting in the Mayo Binka area.

Badjeck said no soldiers died in the fighting. He said the military freed people held by separatists and more than 100 fleeing the violence have arrived in the capital, Yaounde.

Hundreds have been killed in the past year in fighting between the military and armed separatists in Cameroon's northwestern and southwestern regions. The trouble started a year ago the government clamped down on peaceful demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they said was their marginalization by Cameroon's French-speaking majority. </s> YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Armed separatists have kidnapped at least 78 students and their principal from a Presbyterian school in Nkwen village in Cameroon's restive northwest region, a governor said Monday.

The kidnapping late Sunday took place near Bamenda, the capital of the troubled English-speaking region, according to Governor Deben Tchoffo.

A video purportedly of the kidnapped children has been released on social media via men who call themselves "Amba boys," a reference to the state of Ambazonia that armed separatists are trying to establish in Cameroon's Anglophone northwest and southwest regions.

In the video, the kidnappers force several young male students to give their names and the names of their parents. The children say they were kidnapped late Sunday by the armed men and they don't know where they are being held.

The men who identify themselves on the video as the kidnappers say they will only release the children when they achieve what they want.

"We shall only release you after the struggle. You will be going to school now here," say the men. The video could not be independently verified, but parents have said on social media that they recognize their children in the video.

In a statement on Monday, Amnesty International Deputy Regional Director for West and Central Africa Samira Daoud called the abduction "appalling" and said they exemplify the price the general public is paying as violence escalates in the region.

"The abduction of schoolchildren and teachers can never be justified. Whoever is responsible must release and return the victims immediately," Daoud said.

She added: “We express solidarity with the families of these children and demand that the Cameroon authorities do everything in their power to ensure all the pupils and school staff are freed unharmed. In a case with a chilling echo of the 2014 kidnappings of the Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria, it is vital that Cameroon’s government act swiftly and decisively to reunite these children with their loved ones."

Hundreds have been killed in Cameroon's Anglophone regions in the past year, where violence between armed separatists and the military has increased since a government crackdown against protesters in the northwest and southwest regions. The demonstrators claim that as the English-speaking minority they are marginalized by the French-speaking government.

Violent separatists have since taken up arms to destabilize the Anglophone regions to win independence for the areas they want to declare a separate state, which they call Ambazonia. They have mounted attacks against civilians who do not support their cause.

There have been other kidnappings from schools in the region, but this is the largest number kidnapped at once. Armed separatists have even killed teachers who defied instructions to keep schools closed. They have torched at least a hundred schools and chased students and teachers from schools which they then take over as training grounds.

Last week separatist militants attacked workers on a state-run rubber plantation in southwestern Cameroon, chopping off their fingers because the men had defied an order to stay away from the farms.

An American missionary also died in the northwest region around Bamenda when he was shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers.

The turmoil in Cameroon comes as President Paul Biya, who has led since 1982, easily won a seventh term last month in an election that the United States says was marked by irregularities. The government did away with presidential term limits several years ago, part of a trend in Africa that has dismayed many. Biya will be inaugurated Tuesday, and many opposition supporters have said they will continue demonstrations until he leaves power.
Cameroon security forces arrest about 100 people after days of protests against alleged discrimination against the English-speaking minority.