Anglophone Crisis - Secessionists Declare War In Cameroon

After killing soldiers of the national defense forces, in a statement issued on November 9, 2017, the armed wing of the independence movement claimed responsibility for the attacks it said were planned.

The situation is far from normal in the South-West and North-West regions of Cameroon, where for more than a year, a protest movement has aroused more apprehension, every day a little more. On the night of 9 to 10 November 2017, a Cameroonian soldier was slaughtered by suspected secessionists in the town of Akwem in the heart of the Southwest.

The violent death of this young soldier brings to four the number of members of defense forces killed in the English-speaking regions of the country within a few days. On the night of 09 to 10 November, a soldier serving with the 22nd Motorized Infantry Battalion was coldly murdered. The Minister of Communication and spokesman of the government, Issa Tchiroma Bakary expressing the outrage of the Cameroonian authorities was shocked to know that the soldier had been "cruelly slaughtered by a squad of terrorists."

Anglophone Crisis-Secessionists Declare War In Cameroon

This last incident took place in the Sud-Ouest Administrative Region, which together with the neighboring North-West Region constitutes the part of the country where the English-speaking minority lives, theater since October 2016 of a serious socio-political crisis with secessionist overtones. The soldier thus fallen insured, along with his comrades, guard the bridge connecting Cameroon to neighboring Nigeria, near the town of Akwem, not far from the town of Mamfe. The victim was surprised by her murderers as she moved away to a grove, said Issa Tchiroma Bakary, saying it was the first soldier killed in these conditions, the Southwest region. However, three other soldiers were killed earlier this week in the northwest.
Clearly, the four members of the Defense and Security Forces killed by people claiming the secessionist movement known as the Southern United Front Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium (Scacuf), will be avenged, listening Issa Tchiroma Bakary. Especially since the spokesman of the Cameroonian government ensures that these attacks "were duly claimed in a statement signed by this organization and made public". On 9 November, on his Twitter account, the self-proclaimed president of "Ambazonia", Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the state that the English-speaking separatists claim to have created, condemned the assassinations and assured that they had been perpetrated by "unknown individuals of the Ambazonian interim government".

Kalashnikov
However, Joint in London, the leader of the armed wing of Ambazonia maintains that these acts are perpetrated in order to defend themselves. For his part, Minister Tchiroma claims that six suspects, aged between 21 and 32, were arrested in possession of 7.62mm ammunition, just as they were about to cross the border into a neighboring country, after the murder of the first gendarme this 06 november. The other two gendarmes were shot dead in the night of Tuesday 07 to Wednesday 08 November in separate incidents in Bamenda, one of the epicentres of the crisis. The service weapon of one of them, a Kalashnikov, was carried away with ammunition.

Sockets found on the spot, come from weapons of war and do not correspond to any equipment in service in the Cameroonian army. The Cameroonian authorities suspect some separatists to use Nigeria as a rear base and to stock weapons there. In response, South West Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai ordered the closure of the armories, the reporting requirement for all arms holders, the ban on the sale of arms and ammunition, the suspension of all hunting activities with firearms, as well as the prohibition to use firearms at funerals or funerals.

The governor also announced a ban on driving motorbikes from 7 pm to 6 am, and asked the traditional authorities and chiefs of districts to proceed with the census of persons passing through their localities or neighborhoods. All these measures have been taken for the moment for an indefinite period. In the Northwest, a night curfew has been in place since Wednesday 08. It runs until 23 November. The head of the Amazonian defense forces, Ayaba Cho, said on Radio France Internationale (RFI) that these acts were perpetrated in a position of self-defense. "We will fight against these invaders as long as they are present on our territory," he said.

A dissonance with the self-proclaimed president of Ambazonia that reveals dissension in the approaches and actions between the armed wing of Ambazonia who claimed the violence that caused the death and the policies embodied by Sisiku Ayuk Tabe who describe these events as unfortunate and unfortunate in his statement released Thursday, November 9, 2017. Still, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and several English-speaking leaders in favor of the secessionist cause are subject to an international arrest warrant issued by Cameroon.

Source - Anglophone Crisis-Secessionists Declare War In Cameroon