Family pays huge sums of money to gendarmes to secure corpse for burial

A truck driver has been killed at Mile 29 near Muyuka in Cameron’s troubled South West region.

Tesla Mukete CNA reports was shot dead by suspected separatist fighters on Sunday 25th July. Reports say Tesla and three other drivers left Douala in the Littoral region the day before with two truckloads of Groundnut Oil.

They were first intercepted at Ekona at about 11PM CNA reports, by gendarmes who allegedly demanded the sum of FCFA 50,000 each. They would later spend the night at the control post after denying to pay the amount as their boss talking to them on phone expressed worries adding that the goods had receipts because they were duly purchased from Mayor Company in Douala.

They were only permitted to leave the following day after the Mayor Company sent an agent to testify that the goods are from their company in Douala.

CNA quotes a witness: “as the trucks were released, the drivers took the Ekona-Muyuka highway around 9 AM but were stopped around Mile 29, by some heavily armed men”

Tesla CNA adds was shot dead for complaining about the state of the roads when the men asked them to deviate into the bush.

Further exploitation by security forces

CNA further reports that elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR later arrived the scene and asked that the corpse be taken to the Muyuka mortuary, an idea the family was not in favour of. This allegedly saw them pay the sum of 40,000 FCFA to the BIR.

“As the corpse was being taken to Kumba, the Gendarmes suddenly overtook us, blocked the road and asked us to take the corpse to the Brigade in Muyuka. They told us that they wanted to make a report on what happened. Another argument lasted for more than four hours. The boss of the deceased and others threatened to abandon the corpse in the hands of the Gendarmes” CNA quotes its source further.

It adds that the sum of FCFA 120,000 was allegedly given to the gendarmes before they could allow the corpse.

Tesla is one of several civilians that have lost their lives due to the war in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. For close to four years today, government and separatist fighters have not been able to come to a compromise.

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