Military displays corpses of separatist fighters in Kumba Screenshot from amateur video
Government troops in Cameroon have killed six armed separatists in the country’s troubled South West Region.
Soldiers killed Akuro Kandel alias General Spirito and five other fighters in an operation in Foe Bakundu, Mbonge Subdivision in Meme Division on Thursday, March 18, 2021.
Sources familiar with the story say state forces, with the support of some citizens of goodwill, ambushed the separatist fighters at dawn.
General Spirito operated in Bole Bakundu, Mbonge Subdivision under the banner of the Ambazonia Defence Forces, ADF, of Lucas Ayaba Cho.
He referred to himself as the Field Marshal of Mbonge. Days back, he launched a war against civilians in Bole Bakundu after they protested against Ambazonia atrocities in the area. The self-styled general took some civilians into captivity on grounds that they had sided with state forces.
His killing is said to be a victory for civil-military relations.
State forces airlifted the corpse of General Spirito and that of his second-in-commander to the 6th Sector of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) in Mabanda, Kumba. The corpses of the two were later laid at BICEC Junction in Kumba for viewing.
Beside the mortal remains of the separatist fighters were their guns, bullets, uniforms, and assorted paraphernalia retrieved during the operation.
The Senior Divisional Officer for Meme, Chamberlain Ntou’ou Ndong, and his état-major joined the thick crowd that turned out at the scene to see the military’s ‘harvest’.
Three civilians injured in the course of the operation were transported to seek medical attention in Limbe on board a military helicopter, officials said.
Cameroon’s state forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tents in the North West and South West Regions since Anglophone protests transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.
Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.
Tit-for-tat killings, kidnappings, arsons, maiming, and outright terror have become part of daily lives in some parts of the English-speaking regions.
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