Armed Men Gruesomely Murder Gendarme Officer along Bamenda-Ndop Highway

A gendarme officer was reportedly murdered by armed men suspected to be loyalists of Anglophone separatists along the Bamenda-Ndop highway, in the Northwest region of Cameroon.

According to reports, the gendarme officer was mercilessly murdered in the early morning hours of Saturday July 7, 2018 by the gunmen that had barricaded a section of the highway that day.

Even though the circumstances that led to the security staff’s death were still murky at press time, TCR gathered that the gunmen had mounted a roadblock on a section of the road and checked identification papers of passengers of vehicles that drove past along that road.

 It was during one of the checks that the murdered gendarme officer was discovered in a vehicle while dressed in mufti. He was reportedly pulled out of the vehicle and shot by the armed men that later abandoned his corpse on the street.

After getting news of the murder of their colleague, security operatives immediately stormed the area and a serious gun battle between security forces and the gunmen ensued even though details of the casualties were still unknown at press time.

This reportedly led to the dissertation of the area by residents who reportedly feared military reprisals as had allegedly been the case in some other villages of the two English speaking regions.

Even taxi drivers that often ply the Bamenda-Bambili stretch of road reportedly shied away from it as they feared that the violence could extend to Bambili, which is predominantly, a student residential area.

TCR also gathered that some students even fled from Bambili to Bamenda town as they also dreaded a possible extension of the standoff to Bambili.

By THL