Uneasy calm returns to Kombone & Kwa-Kwa after military raids

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Kumba

Relative calm has returned to Kombone and Kwa-Kwa, two villages along the Kumba-Ekondo-Titi road after military raids that left hundreds of villagers fleeing for safety.

                A mixed contingent of military officers from Kumba and Buea on Saturday January 6, 2018 launched a manhunt to crackdown on gunmen who at about 1 am same day attacked and killed a police officer at a checkpoint in Kombone Town village. The attack that killed the police officer on the spot also left a Gendarmerie officer severely injured alongside many other uniform officers.

                As narrated to this reporter by a police source, the police officer was cut with a knife through his throat, while the other uniformed officers sustained injuries from bullets fired by the gunmen. Th source added that the wounded were immediately rushed to the hospital for medical attention and are responding positively to treatment.

Several versions on cause of attack

                Sources at the hospital scene where the wounded officers were rushed to told this reporter that the attacked was a well calculated one by some angry youths who wanted to revenge military raids that had been done on them in the village in the cause of the ongoing Anglophone crisis. Our source added that the group of youths pretended to be fighting among themselves in other to attract the attention of the officers who approached them and instead got attacked at the end.

                Another version of the attack from residents of the area holds that the uniform officers were tipped of the approached of a gang of armed bandits towards the checkpoint and in the cause of them intervening to stop the bandits they were attacked by the gunmen. 

Villagers flee to safety

                The uniform officers in retaliation to the killing of their colleague raided the village and launched a manhunt on the assassins. We gathered that villagers flee to nearby bushes for safety as the uniform officers got almost everyone seen in the village well beaten. Reports also emerged that the angry uniform officers burnt down many motorbikes they found along the roads.

                The military raid did not only affect the villagers of Kombone and Kwa-Kwa as even transporters were all left stranded. Drivers who headed for Kumba from Mbonge and those from Kumba heading to Mbonge, Ekondo-Titi were all stopped and searched. In most cases the drivers ran to nearby bushes abandoning corpses they were transporting. Passengers who were courageous were only left to continue after thorough search carried on them. 

                The Kombone gun attack comes barely weeks after six Gendammerie officers were shot and severely injured at Mambanda, in Kumba III Sub Division.