Limbe loses big in Boko Haram war

Cpt. Mbene

Three of the five most ranking officers that the Cameroon army has lost in the hands of Boko Haram namely: Lt. Col. BeltusHonoreKwene, Capt. PipwohYari Emmanuel and Capt. Elvis MatuteMbene (he was born and bred in Limbe) were all resident in Limbe before their departure to the war front

By Franklin S Bayen in Limbe

As the nation mourns and honours its most recent dead in the war on Boko Haram, this seaside town, far from the battle front, is possibly shedding more tears than any other town in the country.

                Inside two of the caskets that received military honours last week in a ceremony for fallen soldiers at the military headquarters in Yaounde were the bodies of two residents of the city: Lieutenant Colonel BeltusHonoreKweneEkwele and Captain PipwohYari Emmanuel. They were both officers of the Rapid Reaction Force (BIR).

This is not only because they might well have still been on duty at the BIR base in Limbe at the time they died. Though deployed to the battlefront, their families were still resident in Limbe at the time they met their doom.

                Lt. Col. Kwene, the most ranking officer to perish in the war, was fatally wounded in a landmine explosion on February 14 after safely delivering freed Nigerian hostages across the border.

                Their families, neighbours and friends here are in grief. And this is not the first time.

                When about same time last year, Captain Elvis MatuteMbene perished in a landmine explosion at Limani, in the Far North, his wife, parents, neighbours and childhood friends in Limbe were emotionally shattered. A son of the soil whose father is a quarter head in Limbe, Mbene’s funeral nearly emptied Limbe to Bonjongo (formerly under Limbe administratively) where he was laid to rest.

                Though the bodies of Kwene, 39, andYari, 31, will not be seen by the Limbe population, memorials were held in their honour earlier this week.

                A night service took place at Kwene’sLimbe Camp New Layout residence on March 7 in the presence of his widow Vania, a Guidance Counsellor at GBHS Limbe.

                The memorial for Yari, a Limbe socialite well known to nightclub goers, was a popular night show at the Limbe Community Field on March 9, announced days earlier in a banner at Half Mile, downtown. He will be buried in Baba One, Ngoketunjia, in the North West.

                Kwene, father of six, a Francophone Bakossi with an Anglophone Bakossi mother, will be buried in his village, Moumekeng (Bello Market), near Manjo in Moungo Division, Littoral Region.

                Scores of soldiers have fallen in the three-year battle, most of them rank and file, but Limbe’s losses matter more in their quality. Three of the five fallen officers were resident in Limbe. They were the most ranking officers to have perished in the war. Two lieutenants who died earlier, and resident elsewhere, were juniors.