Anglophone Conflict:

Tibor Nagy Urges Y’de to Look Beyond Ngarbuh

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Yaoundé

US envoy Tibor Peter Nagy and President Paul Biya

United States’ Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs has called on government and separatists fighters in the Northwest and Southwest regions to put an end to the ongoing violence and engage in dialogue as way of finding a lasting solution to the ongoing war.

                Tibor Peter Nagy made the appeal to the belligerent forces on 18 May 2020, on his Twitter account. He urged government to do a follow-up on the investigations on the killings in Ngarbuh and to probe into other situations of mass killings in the troubled regions.

                “Government killing of civilians in Cameroon is inexcusable. I urge follow-through on Ngarbuh investigations and many other incidents of this nature. I also condemn separatist attacks on local officials such as the murder of Mamfe’s Mayor. Stop violence, start talking,” Nagy twitted.

                To recall is the fact that the Ngarbuh incident which the US Diplomat is urging government to follow-through its investigations occurred on the night of February 13 breaking 14, 2020. At least 21 one persons were shot dead by soldiers who were on a reconnaissance mission in the area including women and children and houses set ablaze.

                Announced measures made in the report of the commission of enquiry published almost one month including notably; punishment of perpetrators (some soldiers who were entirely blamed for the massacre), exhuming of the corpses for befitting burial, compensation to concerned families among others are still be to be implemented by government but for the creation of a military base in the village.

                Nagy equally condemned separatist attacks on local officials like the recently murdered Mayor of Mamfe in Manyu Division. Mayor Ojong Prisley was murdered Sunday 10 May 2020 on his way to his native Eshobi village. He was tricked by separatist who expressed the wish to drop their arms. The attack also left two soldiers that accompanied him severely injured.

                Cases of killings, kidnapping for ransom and deafening gun battles between the separatists and soldiers still continue to rock the two regions. This is coming at a time when government is making moves to begin reconstruction of the two crisis-ravaged regions. Hundreds of thousand still live as internally displaced persons in bushes, other regions and towns in the country while thousand others still live in Nigeria as refugees.