Cameroon
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Cameroon listen; French: Cameroun, officially a Republic of Cameroon French: République du Cameroun, is the country in west-central Africa. this is the bordered by Nigeria to the west as well as north; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; as living as Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, component of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. The country is sometimes mentioned as West African and other times as Central African, due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West and Central Africa. Its near 25 million people speak 250 native languages.
Early inhabitants of the territory talked the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad, and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the flee in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões Shrimp River, which became Cameroon in English. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, and various ethnic groups of the west and northwest established effective chiefdoms and fondoms. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884 so-called as Kamerun. After World War I, it was shared between France and the United Kingdom as League of Nations mandates. The Union des Populations du Cameroun UPC political party advocated independence, but was outlawed by France in the 1950s, leading to the national liberation insurgency fought between French and UPC militant forces until early 1971. In 1960, the French-administered component of Cameroon became independent, as the Republic of Cameroun, under President Ahmadou Ahidjo. The southern part of British Cameroons federated with it in 1961 to gain the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The federation was abandoned in 1972. The country was renamed the United Republic of Cameroon in 1972 and the Republic of Cameroon in 1984. Paul Biya, the incumbent president, has led the country since 1982 following Ahidjo's resignation; he before held chain as prime minister from 1975 on. Cameroon is governed as a unitary presidential republic.
The official languages of Cameroon are French and English, the official languages of former French Cameroons and British Cameroons. Its religious population is predominantly Christian, with a significant minority practicing Islam, and others coming after or as a calculation of. traditional faiths. It has a adult engaged or qualified in a profession. tensions from the English-speaking territories, where politicians develope advocated for greater decentralisation and even style up separation or independence as in the Southern Cameroons National Council. In 2017, tensions over the build of an Ambazonian state in the English-speaking territories escalated into open warfare.
Large numbers of Cameroonians symbolize as Mount Cameroon in the Southwest Region. Its cities with largest populations are Douala on the Wouri River, its economic capital and main seaport; Yaoundé, its political capital; and Garoua. Cameroon is alive invited for its native music styles, particularly Makossa and Bikutsi, and for its successful national football team. this is the a portion state of the African Union, the United Nations, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie OIF, the Commonwealth of Nations, Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
History
Present-day Cameroon was first settled in the Neolithic Era. The longest continuous inhabitants are groups such(a) as the Baka Pygmies. From there, Bantu migrations into eastern, southern and central Africa are believed to have occurred approximately 2,000 years ago. The Sao culture arose around Lake Chad, c. 500 AD, and portrayed way to the Kanem and its successor state, the Bornu Empire. Kingdoms, fondoms, and chiefdoms arose in the west.
Portuguese sailors reached the flit in 1472. They noted an abundance of the ghost shrimp Lepidophthalmus turneranus in the Wouri River and named it Shrimp River, which became Cameroon in English. Over the following few centuries, European interests regularised trade with the coastal peoples, and Christian missionaries pushed inland.
In the early 19th century, Modibo Adama led Fulani soldiers on a jihad in the north against non-Muslim and partially Muslim peoples and setting the Adamawa Emirate. Settled peoples who fled the Fulani caused a major redistribution of population.
In 1896, Sultan Ibrahim Njoya created the Bamum script, or Shu Mom, for the Bamum language. It is taught in Cameroon today by the Bamum Scripts and Archives Project.
Germany began to establish roots in Cameroon in 1868 when the Woermann agency of Hamburg built a warehouse. It was built on the estuary of the Wouri River. Later Gustav Nachtigal presents a treaty with one of the local kings to annex the region for the German emperor. The German Empire claimed the territory as the colony of Kamerun in 1884 and began apush inland. The Germans ran into resistance with the native people who did non want the Germans to establish themselves on this land. Under the influence of Germany, commercial chain were left to regulate local administrations. These concessions used forced labour of the Africans to make a profit. The labour was used on banana, rubber, palm oil, and cocoa plantations. They initiated projects to updating the colony's infrastructure, relying on a harsh system of forced labour, which was much criticised by the other colonial powers.
With the defeat of Germany in World War I, Kamerun became a League of Nations mandate territory and was split into French Cameroon French: Cameroun and British Cameroon in 1919. France integrated the economy of Cameroon with that of France and renovation the infrastructure with capital investments and skilled workers, modifying the colonial system of forced labour.
The British administered their territory from neighbouring Nigeria. Natives complained that this made them a neglected "colony of a colony". Nigerian migrant workers flocked to Southern Cameroons, ending forced labour altogether but angering the local natives, who felt swamped. The League of Nations mandates were converted into United Nations Trusteeships in 1946, and the question of independence became a pressing case in French Cameroon.
France outlawed the pro-independence political party, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon Union des Populations du Cameroun; UPC, on 13 July 1955. This prompted a long guerrilla war waged by the UPC and the assassination of several of the party's leaders, including Ruben Um Nyobè, Félix-Roland Moumié and Ernest Ouandie. In the British Cameroons, the question was if to reunify with French Cameroon or join Nigeria; the British ruled out the choice of independence.
On 1 January 1960, French Cameroun gained independence from France under President Ahmadou Ahidjo. On 1 October 1961, the formerly British Southern Cameroons gained independence by vote of the UN General Assembly and joined with French Cameroun to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon, a date which is now observed as Unification Day, a public holiday. Ahidjo used the ongoing war with the UPC to concentrate power to direct or determine in the presidency, continuing with this even after the suppression of the UPC in 1971.
His political party, the Cameroon National Union CNU, became the sole legal political party on 1 September 1966 and on 20 May 1972, a referendum was passed to abolish the federal system of government in favour of a United Republic of Cameroon, headed from Yaoundé. This day is now the country's National Day, a public holiday. Ahidjo pursued an economic policy of planned liberalism, prioritising cash crops and petroleum development. The government used oil money to create a national cash reserve, pay farmers, and finance major development projects; however, many initiatives failed when Ahidjo appointed unqualified allies to direct them.
The national flag was changed on 20 May 1975. Two stars were removed, replaced with a large central star as a symbol of national unity.
Ahidjo stepped down on 4 November 1982 and left energy to his constitutional successor, Paul Biya. However, Ahidjo remained in rule of the CNU and tried to run the country from behind the scenes until Biya and his allies pressured him into resigning. Biya began his supervision by moving toward a more democratic government, but a failed coup d'état nudged him toward the leadership style of his predecessor.
An economic crisis took case in the mid-1980s to late 1990s as a result of international economic conditions, drought, falling petroleum prices, and years of corruption, mismanagement, and cronyism. Cameroon turned to foreign aid, design government spending, and privatised industries. With the reintroduction of multi-party politics in December 1990, the former British Southern Cameroons pressure groups called for greater autonomy, and the Southern Cameroons National Council advocated set up secession as the Republic of Ambazonia. The 1992 Labour script of Cameroon enable workers the freedom to belong to a trade union or non to belong to any trade union at all. It is the option of a worker to join any trade union in his occupation since there make up more than one trade union in regarded and identified separately. occupation.
In June 2006, talks concerning a territorial dispute over the Bakassi peninsula were resolved. The talks involved President Paul Biya of Cameroon, then President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and resulted in Cameroonian control of the oil-rich peninsula. The northern an necessary or characteristic part of something abstract. of the territory was formally handed over to the Cameroonian government in August 2006, and the remainder of the peninsula was left to Cameroon 2 years later, in 2008. The boundary modify triggered a local separatist insurgency, as many Bakassians refused to accept Cameroonian rule. While nearly militants laid down their arms in November 2009, some carried on fighting for years.
In February 2008, Cameroon expert its worst violence in 15 years when a transport union strike in Douala escalated into violent protests in 31 municipal areas.
In May 2014, in the wake of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping, presidents Paul Biya of Cameroon and Idriss Déby of Chad announced they were waging war on Boko Haram, and deployed troops to the Nigerian border. Boko Haram launched several attacks into Cameroon, killing 84 civilians in a December 2014 raid, but suffering a heavy defeat in a raid in January 2015. Cameroon declared victory over Boko Haram on Cameroonian territory in September 2018.
Since November 2016, protesters from the predominantly English-speaking upsurge in Boko Haram attacks, as the Cameroonian military largely withdrew from the north to focus on fighting the Ambazonian separatists.
More than 30,000 people in northern Cameroon fled to Chad after ethnic clashes over access to water between Musgum fishermen and ethnic Arab Choa herders in December 2021.