YAOUNDE, Oct 9 (NNN-XINHUA) — An official at the Cameroonian president’s office denied the rumor about President Paul Biya’s health condition, assuring the public that Biya “is doing well.”
“The Civil Cabinet of the Presidency wishes to reassure all our compatriots as well as the international community on the excellent state of health of the head of state who is working and going about his business in Geneva where he has never left since he arrived from Beijing,” said Samuel Mvondo Ayolo, director of Civil Cabinet of Cameroon’s presidency, in a statement.
Ayolo said that “malicious people” have been spreading rumors on social media, claiming that Biya is “seriously ill and even dead.” He described the rumors as “an abuse of freedom of expression” and “an attempt to perturb national and international opinion.”
In a separate statement, the country’s Minister of Communication and government spokesman, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, assured that “the head of state is doing well and will return to Cameroon in the coming days.”
Biya, 91, has been president of Cameroon since 1982.
Meanwhile, a separatist commander was killed in a dawn raid by the army in Cameroon’s war-torn English-speaking Northwest region, local sources said.
According to a statement by the Cameroon army, government forces conducted an operation in Effa village of Momo division, targeting a separatist hideout, during which the commander, known as “general Popo,” was killed.
A security source in the region told Xinhua that ammunition and weapons were seized, while several other separatist fighters escaped with bullet wounds.
Since 2017, separatists in Cameroon’s Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions have engaged in clashes with government forces, seeking to establish an independent nation. — NNN-XINHUA