Civil unrest Cameroon - friend trapped

[Singlein2020]

I have a friend "patience" who went to Cameroon to stay with family for christmas. She was due back last Friday.
On Thursday, i got a call from someone who said she was patience's cousin and she was calling on her behalf as pateince's phone had run out of battery and there was no electricity. Patience was due to fly to Uk that day and I was collecting her from the airport on friday. The cousin said she was going to miss her flight as they were trapped in an area and couldn't travel, that there was bombers and killings happening and they weren't safe. They were in a war zone. The cousin said that patience had no money for a new flight. I asked what I could do and she hung up / was cut off.

I have heard nothing from that call.

I have been trying to call both Patience and her cousin but straight to voice mail. I have messaged and emailed.
I have been scouring online to see what I can find out about what is happening but I can see little. I know the airport is still open.
I am really worried about her but don't have contacts for any family she has over there.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can find out what is happening and how I might find out how / where she is?

You are a good friend OP.

Hope your friend is ok OP.

I just looked on Google news as I wasn't aware of what was happening. There was nothing from UK news sites. I'm surprised there wasn't even the odd Guardian article on there.

you think we are still in dark centuries where you kill people and coverup ? you think you can deceive a foreigner who want to know about the zoo called Cameroon?there is war going on in Ambazonia which your Paul biya recently confirm in Paris that he wanted to wipe the identity of the people of North and South wast regions that joined to form a federal government with Cameroon in 1961 , before it was abolished in 1972 without any ceremony,and you are here deceiving someone who may have lost his friend in this your senseless war that the threat in Cameroon is only booko haraam,God would punish you and Paul biya in the same level, foolish bulu animal

thank you brother, some bulu people are here trying to cover the atrocities of their stupid brother call Paul biya,by deceiving this guy that there is no violence threat in Cameroon,they think everyone is backwards like them

don't ever make a comment about a location you don't know,do you know how you have hurt some of us who has lost love ones and properties by saying that there is no unrest in Cameroon? I'm very angry with you ,you are kind of people who distore information on social media to deceive the world

Glad that your friend has been in contact OP.

you see what I told you? I ask you to make your findings about the zoo called Cameroon,more than ten thousand people have lost their lives and over 3 hundred villages has been burned by Paul biya militias called military

Glad you managed to get in contact with her op, hope she gets back safe.

Well this has turned odd. How come we suddenly have several Cameroonians on the thread? Never noticed them on MN before. It’s odd that they just happened to see this thread.

Anyway, I’m glad Patience is safe and I’m sorry for the people of Cameroon who are experiencing these awful things.

It’s very lucky that Patience must have had the OPs phone number written down somewhere in case she lost her phone or something, which she did.

Wow. There are 5 people on this thread who appear to have in depth info on the situation in Cameroon who have NEVER posted on MN before.

Is someone rallying others to join?

Anyway, the poster ClaudiaWankleman who was accused by Nanaabsu of being one of the Bulu people trying to deceive us into to believing there is no threat other than perhaps Boko Haram is nothing of the sort.

She has posted hundreds of times on mumsnet and none of it about Cameroon or even Africa. She’s just a regular poster who may not have been particularly well informed on the situation, but to be fair neither were any of us until this thread.

@Nanaabsu, many people in the UK have zero grasp of the recent and very much not past-and-done civil war in Northern Ireland, far less know anything about conflicts in central Africa. Don’t take it personally.

There do seem to be plenty of articles on this actually, so it’s not that the world is completely unaware. I guess it hasn’t actually made world news headlines yet because it’s still relatively small scale and frankly, so far so normal for much of Africa. Let’s hope it doesn’t escalate.

I’m crap at trying cut and paste on my iPad but if you google civil unrest Cameroon and look at the results for foreignpolicy.com, New York Times and the human rights organisation HRW.org it will shed some light on things.

It seems the problem is down to Anglophone separatists in two relatively small areas in the NW and the SW trying to form a breakaway state called Amazonia and the French speaking majority backed government who are trying to stop them.

As usual, innocent people get caught up in all the nonsense.

OP, until you hear directly from Patience please don't assume someone isn't trying to scam you. There are despicable people who will use dreadful tragedies as an opportunity to line their own pockets.

Think about it - if Patience's phone wasn't working how did she give your number to her cousin? It seems unlikely that she would have remembered it. Most people can't remember their own mother's phone number, let alone that of a person they only see socially. And why contact you, rather than someone like her employer, or even better, the Foreign Office or British Embassy? You know, people who have the power to do more than sit and hope.

It's entirely possible both things are true: Patience is in a dangerous situation, and someone is trying to scam you.

Sorry, it’s Amazonia. My Autocorrect wants to say Amazonia.

LOL it’s done it again 😂

AMBAZONIA

Lol we are all in the "scam" to help Patience scam her friend😂 This pop up in my news feed. Read the comments and thought I should help make sense of what could have happened because I know the situation in Cameroon.I guess I was targeted because I read any news about Cameroon, and I am sure is the same for the other 4 cameroonians.I am sure the reason Patience had her number(maybe written down)or asked her cousin to contact her was because she was the one picking her up from the airport? As she said no one is asking for money, so all good. Hope this explanation is good enough for you.😂

I'm not implying that you are in on any scam at all Joliebebe.

I just find it odd that there are 5 people registered on MN with no posting history at all who all have strong links to Cameroon and have suddenly come out of the woodwork for this thread! You've got to admit it's odd.

I suspect it's not scam motivated but politically motivated to raise awareness for their cause. And I imagine one of those 5 has contacted others and urged them to register and comment. That's all.

total garbage,what you said anglophones trying to breakaway and form a state call Ambazonia,have you ask yourself why in Cameroon, some people are call anglophones and some francophones,we were a state from 1958 to 61 when our parents voted in a fake referendum to either join Nigeria or Cameroon to gain independent,I called it fake because,where on earth have you ever hear where a people would have independent by joining another country that is already independent?our parents were scammed by Britain and France, today we are 8 million people suffering under the French nonsense call system of government headed by Paul biya who takes instructions from France, don't say what you don't know please, anyway, someone told me most Americans and westerners are not informed about anything beyond their jobs, I'm surprised, most people don't know about the genocide that is going on in my country for the fourth year today,this is not propaganda,more than 12 thousand people have been killed since 2016 , I'm not even in Cameroon and don't know when I would ever go there, don't know who advised patience to travel home

I don't think your average Cameroonian man living in Cameroon and fully up to speed on the political situation there is just by chance knocking around on a British parenting website somehow.

I'm not even in Cameroon and don't know when I would ever go there, don't know who advised patience to travel home

Are you British then? Have you ever been to Cameroon?

Nanaabsu I said 'it seems that the problem is down to Anglophone separatists in two relatively small areas in the NW and the SW trying to form a breakaway state called Amazonia and the French speaking majority backed government who are trying to stop them.

The reason I said it seems to be, is because that is what all the articles I read from what appeared to be well respected, politically neutral organisations and media outlets were telling me.

I understand that you may not agree with my semantics or my overly simplistic phrasing of the situation, but as I'm no expert I can't be expected to put your political argument across for you exactly as you'd like it. The simple facts would seem to be that there are two sides to this fighting and there IS an anglophone separatist movement . I am making no judgment on who is right and who is wrong either way.

someone told me most Americans and westerners are not informed about anything beyond their jobs, I'm surprised, most people don't know about the genocide that is going on in my country

It's perhaps true that most Americans don't know much about global issues outside of North America but I don't think it would be right to lump all 'westerners' together in that accusation. The USA takes up half of a whole continent so it's not surprising they are mostly concerned with what happens on that continent and not elsewhere. It's roughly the same on every continent, I'd say.

I'm sure if I came to Cameroon I would not find your average person on the street fully up to speed or even remotely aware of Brexit or Boris Johnson or the historic troubles in Northern Ireland, for example.

We can't all know about everything going on in Africa. Especially if it's not making headline global news. It doesn't make us stupid, uncaring or ill informed.

That is interesting Nanaasbu which news feed has discussions from MN coming up?

I had no idea threads would come up on anyone's random newsfeed somewhere else in the world! Genuine question by the way, I'm intrigued.

@allideas MN threads come up on my Google news feed & I’m in Scotland.