Four arrested after attacks on transport buses along Douala-Yaounde road

By Tata Mbunwe

Four people have been arrested after men armed with stones attacked transport buses along Douala-Yaounde road on Sunday night, Littoral Governor Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua has said.

At a press conference in Douala on Monday, March 13, the Governor said law enforcement officers are still investigating the attacks, adding that a mixed Police-Gendarme patrol team is ensuring the highway is safe for travelers.

“Around 11pm, the Colegion and the Delegate in charge of national police at the level of the Litoral Region, they went with the elements on the field alongside the companies of Edea. Four people have been caught,” he said.

“I’m asking all four Senior Divisional Officers to make some meetings with the Chiefs for what is going on with this new phenomenon of throwing stones to the vehicles.”

Few hours after Senatorial Elections on Sunday, March 12, some men hiding by the roadside used stones to attack and destroy windshields of passing transport buses around Edea in Sanaga Maritime Division of the Litoral Region.

The attackers destroyed the windshields of buses belonging to Bucca Voyages and Touristique transport agencies, wounding several passengers.

In a release, Transport Minister Jean Massina Ngale Bibehe said the hoodlums robbed passengers and attacked personal cars too.

“Several buses from road transport companies, personal cars and trucks suffered the violence of this horde of criminals,” Minister Ngale Bibehe said.

“The Minister of Transport firmly condemns these acts, and reassures road users that urgent measures have already been taken, under the coordination of the Governor of the Littoral Region, to restore serenity on this nerve center, track and punish as severely as the law provides, their perpetrators.”

The highway attacks in the Littoral Region come barely few months after a wave of open vandalism seized the city of Douala.

A group of vandals called ‘les microbes’ used matchets to attack and rob people in broad daylight. The administration however managed to contain them.

Mimi Mefo Info