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By Tata Mbunwe
An ecumenical service will be held in Limbe today in prelude to an official funeral ceremony of some officials, including the Mayor of Ekondo-Titi, who were killed by an Amba explosive in March.
In a release on April 6, the Chief of Cabinet at the South West governor’s office, Muamaah Jr. Ade, says today’s ecumenical service, holding at Catholic Church Gardens, Limbe, from 11am, will be in honour of three, out of the seven persons killed in the March 2 separatist attack.
They include the deceased Ekondo-Titi Mayor, Nanji Kenneth; CPDM Ekondo-Titi Section President, Ebeku William and an Ekondo-Titi council worker, Eyakwe Mukete.
Prime Minister, Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute will be represented at the Limbe ecumenical service meanwhile Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai will convey President Paul Biya’s condolence message to families of the deceased leaders.
The Governor’s communiqué does not, however, say when the other officials slain in the same attack will be buried.
They include the Divisional Officer for Ekondo-Titi, Timothée Aboloa, a bodyguard, Adjutant Akono, and another officer, who were killed by an explosive planted Amba boys.
The killing of the said administrators is the latest and one of the most deadly separatist attacks on officials since the start of the five-year-long conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.
The attack occurred on March 2, 2022, around the village of Bekora, while the four-vehicle convoy carrying these officials was making a tour around some Ekondo-Titi communities.
Security sources said Separatist fighters had buried six explosives on the motorway, targeting the administrators, but they succeeded to detonate four, killing seven people and injuring several others.
The attack came just three months and a week after another attack by suspected separatist fighters, on November 24, 2021, at Government Bilingual High School Ekondo Titi, caused the death of four students and a Language teacher.
Also notable among attacks on government officials in Ndian Division of the Southwest region, where Ekondo-Titi is located, is the abduction of six civil servants (delegates) at Misore-Balue on 15 June, 2021.
One of them was reported dead days later and the whereabouts of five others is yet unknown, almost 10 months later.
Both soldiers and separatist fighters have been implicated in human rights organisations’ reports, for committing human rights atrocities in the English-speaking regions as the Anglophone Crisis rages on.
