Day: January 17, 2022

YAOUNDE — Authorities in Cameroon are blaming anglophone separatists for the abduction of eight rubber plantation workers Friday in the country’s volatile Southwest region. The country’s Agricultural Workers Trade Union is pleading for the workers’ safe release.

A man speaks in pidgin English as he presents eight men and women as enemies of separatist groups fighting to carve out an independent, English-speaking state in western Cameroon.

In the audio, extracted from a video widely circulated on social media, the man says fighters abducted the civilians for collaborating with Cameroonian government troops.

The video also appears to show the men and women holding rifles. The speaker in the video says separatists expect the civilians to use the rifles to fight the government.

The civilians are also forced to sing a song the speaker in the video calls the national anthem of Ambazonia. Ambazonia is the name of the state separatists say they are fighting to create.

Cameroon’s military says people seen in the video are rubber plantation workers abducted Friday from the town of Tiko.

Bernard Okalia Bilai, governor of the Southwest region where Tiko is located, says the eight abductees are employees of the Cameroon Development Corporation.

Gabriel Nbene Vefonge, president of Cameroon Agriculture and Allied Workers Trade Union, called for the workers’ release.

“We are appealing to who so ever group of persons that is keeping these workers, to kindly release them. Workers have nothing to do with the armed conflict. They should leave workers alone,” he said.

Speaking over a messaging app from Tiko, Vefonge said a breastfeeding mother is among the abducted workers.

Adamu Chinda, who works at the Tiko rubber plantation, says workers took the woman’s three-month-old daughter to the Tiko hospital Monday.

“I am going there now to see how we can raise money and buy the essential things that she [the baby] needs. Let them even release that breastfeeding mother so that she can take care of the child rather than the child dying because of lack of care,” he said.

This is not the first time Cameroon Development Corporation workers have been attacked. In 2020 officials of the agro-industrial complex said that more than 6,000 of its 20,000 workers had fled attacks, killings and kidnappings.

Cameroon’s separatist conflict began in 2016, after teachers and lawyers in the North- and Southwest regions, where English is the predominant language, protested alleged discrimination from the country’s French-speaking majority.

The conflict has killed an estimated 4,000 people and displaced more than three quarters of a million.

Source: Voice of America

ABUJA, NIGERIA — Nigerian authorities say the military is responding to a series of killings and kidnappings by gunmen in the country’s northwest. In the latest attack, gunmen on motorcycles Saturday raided a village in Kebbi State, killing at least 50 people, according to locals.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s senior aide Garba Shehu said on Twitter Sunday that the president has ordered the military to “respond robustly to the cases of killings and kidnappings.”

He added, “The federal government is willing to strengthen support and cooperation with all the states,” and said the president believes that with the full cooperation of the citizens, Nigeria will surely overcome this problem.

It is not the first time the president has issued strong worded threats against armed gangs in the country, known locally as bandits.

But gangs continue to raid communities, looting for supplies and killing and kidnapping for ransom, mostly in the northwest and central regions. The latest incident occurred in Dankade village in Kebbi state over the weekend. More than 50 people were reportedly killed.

Last week, more than 200 people were killed in attacks that lasted three days in northwestern Zamfara state.

However, security analyst Kabiru Adamu says recent efforts by authorities are paying off.

“Since the president renewed his calls to the security forces, what we’ve seen is military airstrikes in forests where these bandits are holding their victims. We’ve also seen an increase in police operations. All of that has affected the ability of these bandits to operate,” he said.

Late last year, Nigeria officially classified armed gangs as terrorists, putting them in the same category with Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa province (ISWAP).

Experts say the designation was a major step in taking deterrent measures against the groups.

“The attacks do not diminish that fact that yes there’s progress,” said Senator Iroegbu, a security analyst. “The terrorists’ capacities have been greatly diminished, so there’s definitely progress from what it used to be.”

Nigeria’s armed forces said last week they killed 537 armed bandits and other criminal elements” in the region and arrested 374 others since May of last year.It said 452 kidnapped civilians have been rescued.

Still, the armed forces are struggling to maintain basic security.

More than 10,000 people were killed in Nigeria in banditry and terror related attacks last year, according to the U.S.-based Council for Foreign Relations.

This month, Nigeria received clearance to deploy fighter jets purchased from the United States after months of delay due to human rights concerns.

Source: Voice of America