Three more teams, Cameroon, Morocco, and Algeria, qualified for the Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) 2026 quarterfinals on August 3-4 in Morocco; Algeria sealed Kenya's elimination with a draw in Rabat; Senegal finished third in the group with four points; the quarterfinal line-up is now set
Armed insurgency in Cameroon's English-speaking Northwest and Southwest, where separatists seeking independent Ambazonia have fought the Yaoundé government since 2017, killing more than 6,500.
A structural vulnerability in personalist autocracies globally: concentrated power leaves no organic succession mechanism, generating crises when leaders die, fall ill, or are forcibly removed.
Separatists stormed the Belo Brigade in the North-West, killing the commander and a gendarme and seizing weapons, the deadliest assault in months, with the 92-year-old Biya re-installed and 48 dead in election protests
Pope Leo XIV's April 2026 visit to Cameroon's anglophone southwest region was the first papal visit to the conflict zone since the 2016 crisis began; Paul Biya's government simultaneously delayed legislative elections again, extending the sitting parliament's mandate through December 2026
Parliament restores a post scrapped in 1972; reports that Biya named son Franck VP are claimed by some outlets and denied by the government