National And International News Roundup – 11th March 2021

Government and separatist are yet to comment over fresh abuses cited in the North West and South West regions. In a recent report, the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa has implicated both parties for a list of violations. Though no side has responded yet, both parties have often traded blames for such incidents.

There has been the epileptic provision of potable water in Limbe since the beginning of this year. Inhabitants of several quarters go for weeks and months without portable water forcing them to fetch water from doubtful sources. They say the situation has worsened since the African Nations Championship, CHAN.


Senator Victor Mukete has condemned rising cases of hate speech in Cameroon. The President of the Senate Provisional Bureau was speaking this evening as he officially opened the first ordinary session of the Senate for the year 2021.


Hon. Adamu Koupit, member of parliament from the Cameroon Democratic Union (CDU) says he is looking forward to deliberations at the National Assembly to ensure that Cameroonians have their national identity cards established and issued to them in due time.

“Names don’t govern”. That is a declaration by Senator Kemende Henry. He looks forward to a total renewal of the Bureau of the Senate. The Senator of the SDF party says people should not be elected to “fill the blank spaces” without actually doing the work.


Dr. Kameni Engelbert, head of the Catholic Health Service in Douala says there has been an influx of COVID-19 patients in Catholic hospitals seeking COVID-19 medicine produced by Archbishop Samuel Kleda last year. Cameroonians are questioning why the government is still reluctant to publicly endorse the medicine to give it international recognition.


Some Cameroonians interested in the political affairs of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire are sounding suspicious of the regime of President Alassane Ouattara given that two of his Prime Ministers have died within six months. The last to die is Hamed Bakayoko. He succumbed to cancer in a hospital in Germany yesterday.

Jane Aceng, Uganda’s health minister, has posted a video of her being injected with a Covid vaccination after claims circulated that she’d avoided having it. Social media users had been sharing a video in which the minister exposes her arm as if to receive the injection, but the needle does not actually go in. However, it was later explained that she’d decided to re-enact getting the jab because some reporters said they’d not been able to film her original vaccination.

Sudan has released a powerful militia leader who was sanctioned by the United Nations for alleged atrocities in the western region of Darfur. The pardon granted to Musa Hilal, a leader of the Janjaweed force, follows a peace deal signed last October between Sudan’s transitional government and Darfuri rebel groups. Mr Hilal was close to former president Omar al-Bashir but fell out with him and was arrested in 2017.

A former president of Mauritania has been charged with corruption, money laundering and unexplained wealth. Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz who held office from 2008 to 2019 spent Tuesday night and Wednesday in custody at the national security headquarters were he was interrogated in the corruption case. Prosecutors have asked for Mr Ould Abdelaziz to be placed under court supervision until further investigations are complete and a court hearing is decided, local media report.

As the Gambia launches nationwide coronavirus vaccinations, President Adama Barrow has taken the lead in being the first to receive his jab. The Gambia, with its population of 2.1 million people, has received 36,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine under the Covax programme. Other people vaccinated on Thursday include Gambia’s vice-president, the Imam of Banjul, its Bishop, and the World Health Organization’s Gambia representative.

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and his wife Janet had their Covid jabs on Thursday. Photos of them being vaccinated at Kigali’s King Faisal hospital have been tweeted by the president’s office. Rwanda is the first African nation to opt for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It has also received doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneva vaccine.

Foreign news: BBC