Reserved Navy Captain Atonfack Geumo Cyrille Serge, Head of Communication Division, Cameroon’s Ministry of Defence says four children killed by security forces in Bamenda on Saturday, January 23, 2021, were “terrorists”.
In a press release Wednesday, January 27, 2021, Atonfack said elements of the 5th Gendarmerie Region carried out Saturday’s killings at Meta Quarters in Bamenda.
“The Ministry of Defence hereby informs: in the afternoon of Saturday 23 January 2021 at about 2:00 pm, and following some information received from the population, elements of the 5th Gendarmerie Region carried out a preventive control operation in the Meta Quarter neighbourhood in Bamenda II subdivision, Mezam Division of the North West Region,” Atonfack wrote.
Archives The Cameroon military has been faulted for killing four teenagers in Meta Quarters, a locale in Mankon, Cameroon’s northwestern city of Bamenda.
The Voice and other local media outlets quoted eyewitnesses as saying that soldiers killed the quartet point-blank around 2:00 pm on Saturday, January 23, 2021.
The soldiers were in search of armed separatists in the area when the incident happened.
Three of the four victims, Ngalim Alucious, Ntakah Nelly Mbah, and Sale Sadam are residents of Old Town while the fought, Brian, lived in Meta Quarters.
According to eyewitnesses, soldiers found the teenagers smoking weed in an uncompleted building.