A stone’s throw from the Mungo River, which partly marks the dividing line between Cameroon’s anglophone and francophone regions, stand armored vehicles and trucks filled with soldiers. They have been there on careful watch since the African Nations Championship (CHAN) got under way on Jan. 16 with the home side’s 1-0 win over Zimbabwe in Yaounde.
CHAN is a long way from being the most important football tournament in the world; it is not even the biggest tournament in Africa.
However, the competition has taken on a more significant role as the Cameroonian hosts run the dress rehearsal for next year’s far more important African Cup of Nations (CAN) while handling COVID-19 and a deadly domestic war.
Photo: AFP
This is the first major international football tournament in the world since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The greater fear resides in the ongoing conflict in the west of the country.
Cameroon’s northwest and southwest regions have for more than three years been the theater of a bloody conflict between government forces and armed separatists.
Photo: AFP
Civilians are often caught up in the fighting, suffering at the hands of both sides, international aid groups and the UN say.
So far more than 3,000 people have died and more than 700,000 have fled their homes during the conflict.
Some armed groups have promised to disrupt CHAN. Along the banks of the Mungo — a symbol of the amalgamation in 1961 of Cameroon following French and British rule after World War I — police and military personnel have been boosted strengthened.
With the quarter-finals having starting on Saturday, fears are rising in Limbe, a town that will host one of the semi-finals, and in Buea, the region’s capital, which is the training center for some of the teams.
Ahead of Wednesday last week’s game between Zambia and Namibia in Limbe, the villages located along the road connecting this seaside town to Douala were almost deserted.
The armed separatists, nicknamed “Amba Boys” because they want to call the territory Ambazonia once they secure independence, stage “ghost town” operations every Monday, prohibiting any activity where they can.
However, since the opening of CHAN, “ghost town” has been decreed every day, including on the eve of the match in Limbe.
Usually very lively, the small towns of Tiko and Mutengene, between Buea and Limbe, were sealed off on Wednesday.
“It is normal that we are on alert,” a police officer in Buea said. “The enemies of peace are there, still active despite everything.”
On the road, as in Buea, light armored patrols crisscross the city, sometimes at high speed and other times at walking pace, but always with machine guns at the ready.
In Limbe, each match brings a new and very palpable sense of fear.
On Tuesday “everyone took shelter after a bomb explosion” near the stadium, 19-year-old Harris said.
On this occasion, there were no casualties. As a result, Harris opted “out of caution” not to go and see the Wednesday’s Zambia-Namibia match as he had planned.
As the competition rolls on toward the final on Sunday, Cameroon holds its breath.
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