Big Babanki: Herbalists in trouble, killing spree continues, corpses littered in the village

Latest reports from Kedjom Keku also known as Big Babanki say killings have continued in the community.

Feared to have been targeted, the case in hand is that of an elderly man called, Tih Betrand.

Tih is a tradi-practitioner (Herbalist) in Fuphense Quarter, in Babanki who was shot dead inside his room on Monday 19th of June 2023.

Sources say troops visited the area the same day and shot him.

Late Tih Bertrand was laid to rest on Wednesday, 20 June, 2023, by quarter people.

Village unsafe for traditional herbalists

According to sources in Big Babanki, traditional doctors are now being targeted.

“Those targeting them believe they are the ones who have been fortifying Separatist fighters in Big Babanki,” revealed our source in the village.

The killing of Tih Bertrand has caused other tradi- practitioners to escape from the village. “If they stay, they would be targeted and killed like they killed Tih, soldiers would come for them,” continued our source.

Trapped at home, insecurity soar

Herbalists, farmers and the villagers before now, felt safe to carry on with life without fear.

Even with the ongoing crisis, the security situation in Kedjom Keku was not this dire.

But the story is different today, villagers told MMI.

(Below are pictures of the the Big Babanki annual cultural festival called <Kiibenkendong>. The last time this annual event took place was seven years ago, before the start of the Anglophone Crisis. It has not held since 2016)

“We are all in house and famine will kill us. Babanki is like a graveyard, the troops move from door to door with a list in their hand, identifying those they want. That’s is what is happening,” said Tatiana, a lady at Fuphense quarter in Big Babanki.

She went on that soldiers who have been reportedly ordered by the Fon to ‘restore calm’ have instead made the village unliveable.

“We thought the military was coming to protect us, but unfortunately they have been making life miserable for us,” she lamented.

Abandoned corpses

Meanwhile three unidentified corpses are still lying in the village.

The victims are said to have been killed on Friday, 16th June, 2023.

Witnesses say the three men were on their way to Bamenda on foot from Belo, since the road is blocked, when they met their demise.

“This is an abandoned corps at Big Babanki which is already decomposing. The whole environment is stinking and no one seems to care. He was killed by the military on his way to Bamenda,” another source who sent a picture of bodies littered in the village told MMI.

The pastor of the presbyterian church in Mbwase has called on the population of the area where the corpses are lying to do all they can and bury them because their decomposition will be harzaredouse to the people.

According to our reporter on the field, troops are still in Babanki in an offensive against separatist fighters.

Ndi Fungwe
MMI’s pecial reporter on Big Babanki, Anglophone Crisis in Bamenda.

Cover Picture by Erick Ntang