Renowned journalist Mimi Mefo who worked for a private TV Station in Cameroon before she was picked up by state security and persecuted by the government for her courageous reporting on the crisis in NoSo, and who currently resides in the USA has catalogued the attacks of the ARFs on the Cameroonian military recently in an article which she captions “Rebels Killing State Forces Like Kids Playing Video Games”.
Mimi Mefo states that “The rate at which rebels are killing Cameroon’s state forces in the country’s troubled Northwest and Southwest Regions is very alarming, with several casualties recorded on government side, months after the likes of Minister Atanga Nji Paul declared victory and said there is a rapid return to normalcy.”
According to her, video footages have emerged in the last few weeks, which show ARFs ambushing and killing state forces in large numbers in some parts of the Anglophone regions in a manner akin to kids playing video games.
Her report reveals that last month, ARFs almost overran a Gendarmerie Brigade in Kumba in the Southwest Region. With the aid of a hand-propelled rocket launchers, the rebels destroyed the security post that hosts state forces.
On June 27, a day after the attacks on the Gendarmerie Brigade, ARFs blew up an army patrol vehicle with the aid of locally assembled explosive devices, killing several state forces.
Still in Kumba, two police officers were kidnapped by ARFs on July 7, 2021, and their fate remains unknown. It should be recalled that armed men in Belo, Boyo Division of the Northwest Region had on July 7 ambushed states forces, killed an undisclosed number of them and carried away sophisticated weapons and paraphernalia.
ARFs attacked a security checkpoint in Njavnyuy in Bui Division on July 9, killing one police officer and gravely injuring three others. The number of state forces who died in an attack in Alakuma Mankon on July 11 is now only a matter of conjecture.
After burning down an army base in Bali Subdivision on July 14, ARFs aboard motorbikes crossed into Babadjou in the Western Region, clad in military attire, and killed two soldiers, wounding one other. The Amba boys proceeded to gun down a soldiers in Pinyin, Santa Subdivision.
Two days later, ARFs detonated an IED, destroying the building hosting the Ntarinkon Gendarmerie Brigade and shattering military vehicles stationed within the premises.
It was a bloody Sunday, July 18 in Bali when ARFs detonated an IED that immobilised a police van. All five police offers on board were then killed by the armed men and their weapons taken away.
Mimi Mefo info recalls that on June 19, ARFs killed three Gendarme officers in Ngoketunjia Division. Two of the three killed were decapitated. The attack followed the murders of two soldiers and the Ndian Divisional Delegate of Economy, Planning and Regional Development in the South West Region.
She also quotes the Senior Divisional Officer for Ngoketunjia Quetong Handerson Kongeh telling AFP in an interview that “Three Gendarmes who were at their checkpoint were attacked and killed” by separatist fighters, adding that two of the three killed had been decapitated, while a fourth managed to escape.
She concludes her report by stating that “In recent time, it is increasingly clear that the separatists are having an upper hand and the state security forces appear demoralised at the battle front. It is now time for President Paul Biya to eat the humble pie and find a solution to this crisis.”
DHPI has also been made to understand that the government has not been very transparent with the figures of troops who have lost their lives in the armed conflict in NoSo due to pride and the firm desire to eliminate any factor that will affect the morale of the state security forces. Most often the public and the international community is left to guess the figures of military casualties from the images and footages making rounds on social media, whereas not all the killings get to be within the range of smartphone cameras.
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