Bamenda: Shopkeeper dies after sustaining bullet wounds during military rampage

Complete calm is yet to return to Bamenda in Cameroon’s North West region as soldiers broke lose last week.

This was after a police inspector was shot dead by separatist fighters on September 1.

Reports say a civilian who sustained bullet wounds as soldiers opened fire, has died in hospital.

A source close to the said victim, Chibikom Ignatius, said he had left home like everyone else on Thursday, September 3, to his drycleaning shop below the General Hospital.

“During the shooting, he hid inside his shop. When things came back to normal around 2PM, neighbors say he left his shop to buy airtime from a telephone booth nearby,” the family source narrates.

The source adds: “When he got the airtime and was rushing back to his shop for safety, they shot him from behind.”

Ignatius, he says, was rushed to the hospital and placed on oxygen.

“He had lost a lot of blood. Unfortunately, he died that same night.”

The brother is still to come to terms with his death. “I’m shivering, I’m hurt, this has affected us all, what a stupid war,” he told MMI in tears.

The 43-year-old, a father of three, is one of several civilian casualties due to the crisis.

Like many others, his death has gone almost unnoticed, as government has remained mute over the soldiers’ excesses last weekend.