Kidnappers released this week the last of more than 80 hostages taken from a Presbyterian school in Cameroon amid an escalating crisis in the Central African country’s English-speaking regions.

Just over a week after being captured at gunpoint, the principal, dorm warden, and two remaining students were freed Monday, while the rest of the victims, students ages 11–17, were let go last week, Reuters reported.

The Presbyterian-run boarding school in the region’s capital, Bamenda, has been forced to shut down since the captors threatened further attacks.

The incident represents the latest of at least four school abductions over the past two months, and about a dozen over the past year, as unrest over disparities between Cameroon’s English-speaking North-West and South-West regions and the nation’s French-speaking majority turns increasingly violent. Another 11 boys had been taken from the same school the week before.

And the kidnappings, as heart-wrenching as they are, represent just a small portion of the violence that has left the Anglophone region on the brink of civil war.

An estimated 400 civilians have died in the dispute, including an American missionary caught in the crossfire last month, just weeks after moving to Cameroon. More than a quarter-million people have fled their homes and villages, and many who remain are desperate for security and resources.

Cameroon’s churches, whose cry for peace has intensified over the past few months, have suffered in the separatist conflict, with four church buildings taken over by military forces and at least 50 Christian-run primary schools, secondary schools, and hospitals affected, according to Gustav Ebai, information and communication secretary for the Council of Protestant Churches of Cameroon.

“We have failed God,” he said in an interview with CT. “There is no evil like the evil I have seen in my country.”

The instability in North-West and South-West dampened celebrations for the coastal nation’s 61st annual Presbyterian Church Day, held last Sunday.

“Given what the Anglophone community is passing through at this moment, we cannot really celebrate; feasting and enjoying ourselves while many of God’s children are being killed, living in pains, frustrated and others living as internal and external refugees,” stated Fonki Samuel Forba, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC).

He advised congregations in the PCC—the largest local English-speaking denomination, with over a million members—to keep observances low-key and to use the occasion to raise awareness about those impacted by the recent violence.

More than 100 PCC pastors are believed to have fled the two regions as conditions worsen; in Bamenda, some residents fear that even traveling or attending typical gatherings could put them at risk of attacks. Ebai told CT that in many villages, the pastors were the last to leave.

PCC leaders have helped coordinate counseling for displaced families who have moved in with friends or fellow church members in safer regions. Millions are in need of humanitarian aid as a result of the conflict. Those who are left in the Anglophone region tend to be the poorest and neediest—the ones without means to flee elsewhere.

“… [M]uch emphasis should be laid on raising Mission Work Fund to enable the Church continue to attend to our displaced pastors and brethren affected by the armed conflict that has brought sorrow and suffering upon many,” Forba stated. “As we keep on praying and trusting that soon the Lord would turn our mourning to rejoicing and the flourishing of life in absolute peace and justice, remain inspired.”

The escalating violence in the Anglophone regions coincided with a tense election held last month, which re-elected 85-year-old President Paul Biya for his seventh term in office; he has ruled since 1982.

Though Cameroon’s two languages and corresponding cultural differences date back to British and French colonial rule, the conflict has emerged more recently as English speakers in North-West and South-West began to protest against discrimination from the French majority in the national government about two years ago.

The Anglophones—who represent 3 million people and approximately a fifth of the nation’s population—defended their place in local schools and courts in particular. Their protests eventually spurred an intense separatist movement when Biya responded by sending an elite military unit to the area.

Because the education system has become a major point of contention between the two sides, the armed separatists have burned or taken over more than 100 schools in western Cameroon in the past year.

Many Cameroonians suspect an unfair election and worry that there will not be a peaceful resolution for the English-speaking regions under Biya, since the affected areas are also a political stronghold for his opposition.

“Before, during, and after the presidential elections that just ended in Cameroon, Christians, and many believers of other faiths, prayed for this country. They prayed like they never did before,” wrote Buma Kor Dickson, a Christian publisher based in Yaoundé.

“The fact is that Cameroonians on both sides prayed for change, but the answer is still to come. God is not done with Cameroon, yet!”

At Presbyterian Church Bastos, in the capital city of Yaoundé, Emmanuel Basam urged Christians to continue praying for peace, calling to mind the Presbyterian schools and hospitals threatened by attacks to the west.

For over a year, Basam has addressed the Anglophone-Francophone conflict in his preaching, including sermons on loving your enemies, seeking unity, and praying for God to heal the land.

The national Protestant council adopted Deuteronomy 19:10 as a theme verse earlier this year: “Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed” (NIV). Now, they have focused their prayers on restoration, based on 2 Corinthians 13:11: “Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you” (NIV).

Ebai has urged churches to use the global coverage and attention around the recent kidnappings as an opportunity to double-down on their message, condemning the current violence and calling for peaceful discussion.

“We need to communicate it at all levels, at every church, every sermon, every Sunday,” he said. “If you are praying without action, how do you expect God to use you?”

Seeing the conflict as a humanitarian crisis, Christian denominational leaders have taken the initiative to promote dialogue between the government and the secessionists, Christian leaders told CT. Many of their own have fled the region for safer cities, or even left the country for neighboring Nigeria, as the threat of violence grew more severe.

Ebai, whose family is from South-West, has taken in 15 relatives and visits family in the region at least once a month. Four of his cousins, including two in the military, have died in the fighting.

Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Catholic clergy in the majority-Christian nation have partnered with Muslim leaders to offer to work as mediators, but officials feared political motives behind their efforts, Catholic newspaper La Croix reported.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International condemned the indiscriminate killings, attacks, and abductions suffered by ordinary people living in North-West and South-West.

American missionary Charles Wesco numbers among the civilian victims. The Baptist pastor and father of eight was killed on October 30, less than two weeks after his family moved from Indiana to outside Bamenda.

“We deplore the death of the missionary,” Edward Njini, pastor of Nkwen Baptist Church in Bamenda, told Religion News Service. “It is unfortunate they fired the guns and he was killed. I don’t think he was a target.”

Wesco and a fellow missionary were driving into town when their vehicle was shot; both the separatists and the government forces blame the other side for the killing.

Family members and fellow missionaries honored Wesco at a memorial service in South Bend, Indiana on Monday. They “have been praying diligently for the man that took Charles’ life,” said Randy King, a pastor who served for 30 years in Cameroon.

“But I pray as a missionary to Cameroon that I … might one day have the opportunity to meet Charles’ killer to express our forgiveness to him and in love, seek to lead him to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior that he might also receive God’s forgiveness for what he did.”

Catholic media report that a Catholic seminarian, Gerard Anjiangwe, was also killed last month, and a priest in the South-West town of Bomaka was shot in July.

Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Far North region continues to suffer under the threat of Boko Haram terrorists. Christianity Today recently reported its November cover story from neighboring Nigeria on the relentless attacks the church there has faced from Boko Haram and militant Fulani herdsmen.

Culled from Christianity Today International(US)

Bishop George Nkuo embarked on a visitation to St Mary Magdalene’s Parish Nkar in what many have described as a concerted push for efforts favouring peace over conflict in Southern Cameroons. The Roman Catholic Bishop of the Kumbo Diocese reportedly made the trip over the weekend amid road blocks by troops loyal to the regime in Yaounde and Ambazonian Restoration Forces.

The mission to Nkar has prompted a host of questions about the Bishop’s security given continual violent clashes there between Cameroon government forces and armed Southern Cameroon fighters. The Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Cameroon Concord News Group, Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai raised the issue of the Bishop’s visit to Nkar in today’s editorial meeting.

Despite the concerns, Southern Cameroonians in the Diaspora have opined that Bishop Nkuo’s visit to Nkar had a high symbolic value for peace in Cameroon and for the entire Anglophone regions.

By Rita Akana

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

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The Roman Catholic church, the main religious body in Cameroon has issued conflicting comments on the conduct of the October 7 presidential election in which incumbent Paul Biya was declared the winner.

Church bells ring at Our Lady of Victories Cathedral in Yaounde, inviting Catholics to a mass to be said by metropolitan Archbishop Jean Mbarga. Mbarga says the special mass is to pray for peace in Cameroon and salute the victory of President Paul Biya in Cameroon’s October 7 presidential election.

He says people should congratulate Paul Biya for his victory especially as electoral disputes were handled in a transparent manner by the constitutional council. He says everyone should recognize Biya as the president elect, start preparing for the next election and thank God for the peace that was observed during the presidential poll.

The archbishop’s declaration that the election was transparent sharply contradicts the position of the episcopal conference of Cameroon Roman Catholic bishops of which Mbarga is a member.

Samuel Kleda, archbishop of Douala and president of the episcopal conference had criticized the election saying that the large turnout announced by the elections management body ELECAM along Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria, was particularly suspicious.

Kleda said that the fighting in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions and the Boko Haram insurgency along Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria had displaced large numbers of people and they could not vote.

Kleda says he is surprised at claims that the ruling party candidate Paul Biya scored overwhelming victories in many parts of Cameroon including the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions where they themselves said they were unable to go to campaign because of galloping insecurity.

He says petitions filed by opposition party candidates that the election were marred by massive fraud and did not even take place in several regions ought to have been taken seriously by the government because Cameroon’s unity is threatened.

Cameroon’s Roman Catholic bishops have been divided before, even though it has never been as public as it is now. When the separatist movement in the Anglophone regions became violent, Kleda condemned the government troops for brutality, while some bishops, including Mbarga, said it was legitimate defense.

An estimated 35 percent of Cameroon’s 24 million people are of the Roman Catholic faith.

On Oct. 22 incumbent Paul Biya was declared the winner with 71 percent of the vote, with his main challenger, Maurice Kamto, only receiving 14 percent.

Several opposition candidates accused Biya’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) party of massive electoral fraud to keep the 85-year-old leader in office for another seven years. Biya is Africa’s longest serving president, having entered office in 1982.

Source: VOA

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Banking IBAN: GB51 BARC 2049 1103 9130 15

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The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

Catholic bishops in Cameroon have disputed the results of the Oct. 7 presidential election in the country. The official results were released on Oct. 22 and declared incumbent Paul Biya the winner with 71 percent of the vote, with his main challenger, Maurice Kamto, only receiving 14 percent.

Biya’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) party has been accused of massive electoral fraud to keep the 85-year-old leader in office for another seven years. Biya is Africa’s longest serving president, having entered office in 1982.

In the latest election, he was challenged by seven other candidates. In an Oct. 23 press conference, the president of Cameroon’s bishops’ conference, Archbishop Samuel Kleda, said serious questions needed to be asked with regard to the outcome of the ballot.

“This election led me to ask questions,” the archbishop told journalists in Douala.

He noted the large turnout for the president in the Far North Region of the country as being particularly suspicious.

The region is home to the worst poverty levels in Cameroon, with 74 percent of  the people living below the poverty line compared with 37.5 percent nationally, according to the International Crisis Group.

“I don’t see up to 89 percent of people going through such suffering voting for the same person who has been there, doing nothing about the hardship of the people…the far north is one of the poorest and most undeveloped regions in Cameroon…I am seriously puzzled by those figures,” Kleda said.

“This means that all the problems we were looking to resolve before the election will not be resolved.” he added.

The archbishop also questioned the declared victory of Biya in the troubled North West and South West regions.

These are the Anglophone areas of Cameroon and have been engulfed in violent clashes dating back to October 2016.

Kleda noted that the fighting in the two regions had displaced large numbers of people who couldn’t therefore vote.

“At a time when it was impossible to campaign in the two regions, where are all these figures coming from?” Kleda asked.

Kamto, who claims the election was stolen, has called for the annulment of the results in seven of Cameroon’s ten regions, citing cases of massive fraud.

Another opposition candidate, Joshua Osih, has called for the annulment of the entire poll, because “no election took place in the North West and South West Regions.”

“If I am declared winner of this election, I will decline to be sworn in because I cannot be president of only one part of Cameroon,” Osih told the country’s Constitutional Court.

Kleda complained about what he called the “hasty ruling of the Constitutional Council” in declaring the official results.

“I think all the candidates, Kamto, Cabral and Osih had a strong case and proofs to show there were irregularities, especially the petition of the SDF [the main opposition party] on the North West and South West Regions where few people voted…They had to listen to them… Cameroon is a country with the rule of law, the council kept rejecting all the petitions based on technicalities which was not normal,” the archbishop said.

Kleda then dismissed the results as prefabricated saying it was a trend in the region.

“One has the impression that in the Central African sub region, election results are decided before voting takes place,” he said.

The Emeritus Archbishop of Douala, Cardinal Christian Tumi, a virulent critic of Biya, surprisingly took a more conciliatory tone.

“I would say only one thing: let’s take everything as God’s will, because no one wields power on earth which doesn’t come from God. Those who govern us will render account of how they governed us to God. So, let’s not create problems for them. Let’s accept (the results) and wait for another occasion to choose another person,” the cardinal said.

The bishops are considered by many to be a key to peace in the country, which is 40 percent Catholic.

In May, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group issued a report on Cameroon saying other than the Catholic clergy, “there are few prospective peacemakers.”

“If no one fills that role, the separatist sentiment already voiced by many Anglophones will continue to grow, fueling further violence and exacerbating the ongoing insurgency in the Anglophone regions,” the report said, before noting the 2018 elections could be “a flashpoint.”

Source: Crux

Now that you are here

The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons.  The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.

The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers.    However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization.  It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.

Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Banking IBAN: GB51 BARC 2049 1103 9130 15

Swift BIC BARC GB22XX

SORT CODE 20-49-11, ACCOUNT NUMBER – 03913015 Barclay PLC, UK

The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.

Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com

At least two people died on Wednesday evening, when the church of Sainte Marceline de Minkan in Odza, a suburb of the capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé, collapsed under heavy rain. People had gathered in the church to pray the Rosary.

According to Fr Félix Désiré Amougou, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Yaoundé, the provisional toll of the tragedy is two dead, four injured, and one missing.

According to the parish priest of Minkan, Abbot Ndoumve, firemen arrived immediately and have been working since the night of October 17 to remove the rubble and continue the search for bodies and any survivors.

Source: Independent Catholic News

Since 2016, Cameroon, the West African state most famous for its soccer prowess, has descended into conflict. With the country voting in an already discredited presidential election on 7 October, the need for strong leadership from the Catholic Church has never been greater.

The roots of the conflict

Cameroon’s English-speaking minority claims it has been increasingly marginalized by the Francophone majority since gaining independence. Of 32 cabinet members, only one is Anglophone, even though English speakers represent 20% of the population. In 2016, the government tried to impose Francophone judges in the Anglophone region’s courts, and to force the French language on its schools. This led to peaceful civil protests such as strike days when shops and schools closed. The authorities responded with disproportionate force, inadvertently fueling a militant secessionist movement. An example of this heavy-handed reaction, as reported by the impartial human rights watchdog, Crisis Group, was a government helicopter hovering over a church, shooting unarmed worshippers as they emerged.

The conflict deepens

The security situation is deteriorating rapidly. Dozens of secessionist leaders who were detained in January remain incommunicado, adding to Anglophone grievance. A recent Amnesty report describes the army’s scorched earth tactics, with 106 villages in the North West and South West regions raided, looted, and burned. Their ethnic cleansing strategy is working: 200,000 have fled into the bush, while 20,000 are in refugee camps in Nigeria.

Social media heightens the sense that English-speakers are being persecuted. Stories of government soldiers torturing and humiliating Anglophones are common, as are disturbing videos of human rights violations circulating online. In this tense atmosphere, there are rumours that political prisoners are being sprayed with chemicals that make them unwell. Cameroon authorities have reportedly denied visas to the International Committee of the Red Cross. On September 10th, soldiers demanded that doctors at Bamenda hospital hand over wounded patients, suspecting them of being rebels, rather than civilians caught in cross fire. There are also unconfirmed reports from the Africa-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy that the government now requires Anglophones to have internal travel permits. Amnesty estimates 400 people have been killed, although sources in Cameroon believe the figure is much higher, claiming that there are mass graves in the bush.

The authorities’ harsh response to early peaceful protests has led to a polarization of opinion within the besieged Anglophone community. Secessionists are now using extreme violence, targeting security services and government representatives, and punishing civilians who fail to back their vision of a new independent Anglophone country called Ambazonia. Schools not participating in the general strike are being attacked, with 70 torched since 2016. Teachers and students have been seized, and parents are withdrawing their children from schools. The principals of several secondary schools have been kidnapped as retribution for keeping schools open. On an anecdotal level, a Catholic nun reports to your correspondent that her town is surrounded by forces from both sides, effectively holding civilians hostage; people who have fled to camps fear imminent attack; and members of the Diaspora worry constantly about the safety of their family back in Cameroon.

Although the Anglophone Diaspora has appealed to the UK, its former colonial power, it is clear from answers to Parliamentary questions from Lord Alton among others that Britain will go no further than appealing for dialogue. In the run up to Brexit, establishing trading relations is a priority; in June, the government announced that UK interests had signed a natural gas deal with Cameroon worth £1.5 billion. Furthermore, the international community is unlikely to apply pressure to Cameroon’s leader, Paul Biya, while his country’s troops are battling the Islamist terrorists, Boko Haram, in the Lake Chad region.

What can the Catholic Church do?

The church commands the respect of all sides of the population; it is seen as a legitimate voice of civil society. From the beginning of the current crisis, Anglophone faith leaders have called for inclusive talks aimed at finding a peaceful, federal approach, devolving some powers to disenfranchised English-speaking regions. These calls were first ignored and then rejected by Biya’s government. As secessionists have adopted increasingly violent means, the Francophone authorities have hardened their position, refusing to negotiate with terrorists.

The 85-year-old Biya will most probably be re-elected in October, after a process that will fail to meet international standards of free and fair elections, as it usually does in Cameroon. Observers fear that the closing days of the election campaign may spark even more violence. Biya, who has been in power since 1982, seems determined to ignore Anglophone calls for dialogue. Meanwhile, it is noticeable that few French-speaking faith leaders have expressed solidarity with their opposite numbers in the Anglophone region, or have put pressure on Biya to compromise.

In November there will be a conference of faith leaders, convened by the Anglophone churches. This is an opportunity for French-speaking Catholics to join moderate Anglophones in calling for inclusive dialogue to resolve the country’s crisis by non-violent, constitutional means. The church is in a unique position, with the moral authority to push the government into negotiations. The continuing disengagement of many Francophone faith leaders is unhelpful at best. While brave Anglophone priests and bishops demonstrate the courage to seek a peaceful and moderate way forward, they deserve the active support of their fellow religious leaders among the French-speaking majority.

Source: Independent Catholic News