Category Archives: Cameroon

Lake Chad shrinking? It’s a story that masks serious failures of governance | Oli Brown and Janani Vivekananda

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Our two-year study shows the lake has been stable since the 1990s. Costly ‘solutions’ shift focus from the complex causes of the region’s deadly crisis

Lake Chad is a hydrological miracle – a life-giving, freshwater lake in the Sahara desert. But the region around the lake has been engulfed in a violent crisis for more than a decade, which has left nearly 10 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Military crackdowns on insurgent groups such as Boko Haram have failed to end the violence. Bringing durable peace to the region requires unpicking a Gordian knot of many interlinked factors: poverty, sectarian mistrust, political marginalisation and corruption. The risks posed by the climate crisis to the rainfall-dependent livelihoods of the people of Lake Chad are an important strand of this challenge.

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Stay home or risk being shot: Cameroon’s back-to-school crisis

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An education ban enforced by separatist rebels has affected 600,000 children in English-speaking areas

The lessons at Seraphine Akwa’s house were supposed to be secret. She had been teaching at a primary school in Bamenda, in anglophone Cameroon, but repeated threats had forced the headmaster to shut the school’s doors.

The threats were from the “Amba boys”, separatists who have been fighting a two-year battle with Cameroon’s francophone government to break off and form their own state, Ambazonia. They enforced a school boycott to protest against educational injustices against English-speakers.

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Violence forces 1.9 million children out of classes in west and central Africa

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Unicef report points to three-fold increase in number of schools closed in the region in two years due to intensifying conflict

More than 1.9 million children are forced out of school across west and central Africa due to rising violence and insecurity, putting them at higher risk of recruitment by armed groups, the UN’s children agency has warned.

In an urgent report published on Friday, Unicef revealed that more than 9,000 schools have been shut down as of June this year in eight countries; Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.

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Cameroonian forces in anglophone region accused of killing four people

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Victims include male civilian, 20, with mental health disability and elderly disabled man

Cameroonian forces have killed at least four civilians during security operations in one of the country’s anglophone regions in the past month, according to a human rights organisation, including two men with disabilities.

An uprising by separatists that began two years ago and the response by security forces have caused intense suffering in the anglophone regions of the former German colony, which was carved up by France and Britain during the first world war.

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In a world full of wars, why are so many of them ignored? | Simon Tisdall

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Instability across central Africa has resulted in a humanitarian crisis. There needs to be greater focus on conflict resolution

Cameroon, a central African state of 24 million people on the Gulf of Guinea, is rarely in the news – which is surprising, given the awful things happening there. In a warring world full of conflict, the country’s troubles barely rate a mention. That’s short-sighted. As Yemen shows, today’s local difficulties have a habit of becoming tomorrow’s international crises.

Long-running tensions between Cameroon’s French and English-speaking communities came to a head last week with the arrest of at least 350 members of the main opposition party, whose leader has been jailed since January. Human Rights Watch accused security forces of using “excessive and indiscriminate force”.

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Hundreds of opposition members arrested in Cameroon

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Security forces take 351 into custody after protesters call for release of their party leader

Hundreds of members of Cameroon’s main opposition party are being held in custody after the country’s security forces carried out mass arrests during a series of anti-government protests over the weekend.

Two people were injured and 351 arrested on Saturday in four regions of the central African country in protests against its octogenarian president, Paul Biya, and his government. Several senior opposition leaders were among those arrested. Only a handful of people have been released.

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Childish Gambino choreographer urges fans to step up for young rural Africans

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Sherrie Silver, who was behind acclaimed video This is America, launches virtual dance ‘petition’ to promote investment in farming

She made a name for herself as the choreographer behind one of the most controversial yet critically acclaimed music videos of last year.

Now Sherrie Silver, the creative force behind the dance moves in Childish Gambino’s This Is America, is using her success to drive a social media campaign promoting investment in young people in rural Africa.

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Cameroonian soldiers accused of killing baby as family flees

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Army denies involvement in death of four-month old in violence-plagued anglophone region

The parents of a baby allegedly murdered by Cameroonian soldiers last Monday have gone into hiding, afraid speaking out will make them a target for the authorities.

Pictures of the dead four-month-old Martha Neba were circulated online, along with a graphic video showing her body on a sofa with bullet casings nearby and her aunt crying as an unknown man filming the video accused Cameroon’s military of killing her.

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Thousands of Nigerian refugees fleeing Boko Haram forced back by Cameroon

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UN voices alarm and urges Cameroon to keep its doors open after it denies entry to thousands fleeing unrest

The United Nations said on Friday it was “extremely alarmed” by the forced return by Cameroon of thousands of refugees to north-east Nigeria, where Boko Haram Islamists pose a continuing threat to civilians.

“This action was totally unexpected and puts lives of thousands of refugees at risk,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, said in a statement.

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Thousands flee north-east Nigeria after devastating Boko Haram attack

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More than 8,000 refugees cross border into Cameroon after Nigerian town of Rann is burned to the ground

Thousands of people have fled into Cameroon from north-east Nigeria following violent attacks by a faction of the militant group Boko Haram, which looted and destroyed large parts of a major town.

More than 8,000 refugees have crossed the border into Bodo after the attacks on the Nigerian town of Rann on Monday, in which at least 10 people are thought to have been killed. Homes and humanitarian organisations’ buildings were burned down.

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