On Tuesday, June 2, 2020, Malende, a locality in Kumba III Subdivision was the theatre of deafening gunshots as soldiers battled to clear the area of the last vestiges of armed men who seek to make a breakaway state called Ambazonia.

Speaking to newsmen June 3, Meme Senior Divisional Officer (SDO) Chamberlain Ntou’ou Ndong said the military operation recovered assorted weapons from the camp of the armed rebels as well as phones, solar panels, and some military paraphernalia.

The civil administrator said the military mission to Kumba III is a relief for locals in Teke, Mambanda, Malende, Three-Corners, and their environs where the rebels had pitched their tents.

Ntou’ou Ndong said the seven killed in the Malende camp should serve as a warning for those still hiding in the bushes. He urged them to honour the presidential call to lay down their weapons and be reintegrated into society through the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) program.

His words: “Let me say it openly here that the SDO and his team will continue permanently to secure our population. Those boys, there is no way for them if they don’t want to lay down their guns. I’ll continue to hunt them! I am calling on them to seize this opportunity to lay down their guns as the Head of State said.”

The neutralized fighters are thought to be among those who gave tough times to the populations of Three-Corners, Malende, Teke, Ikiliwindi, and the entire Mambanda.

It is within this expanse that 41-year-old Akwo Gabriel Makia, Elder of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, PCC, Kumba-Town Congregation was killed on Sunday, May 31, 2020 when armed separatists opened fire on his car.

Authorities have called for calm within the ranks of the locals, urging them to collaborate with administrative and security forces for a swift return to peace.

Cameroon-Info.Net recalls that Teke served as the backyard of “General Ivo”, a separatist fighter who led other armed men to fight for the “restoration” of the independence of a country they call Ambazonia – a geographical allusion to Cameroon’s North West and South-West Regions.

The kingpin of the Ambazonia armed separatist movement fondly called ‘General Ivo’ was reportedly killed in Teke, Kumba III Subdivision in Meme Division on December 21, 2018, during a raid carried out by the elite forces of Cameroon’s Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR.

Cameroon’s defense and security forces, as well as administrative officials have since paid regular confidence-building visits to the area including security missions.