Mayhem in Big Babanki as Soldiers kill, burn old man to aches

Security forces are reported to have shot and burnt an old man to death in Big Babanki, Mezam Division of the North West Region.

Popularly known as Tih Clo, the victim was a resident of Tonguh quarter in Kejom Keku.

According to sources from Big Babanki, the troops had embarked on searching of homes in the quarters, when they met the said old man who had visited a friend at the Tonguh quarter neighbourhood.

The owner of the home is reported to have escaped leaving the visitor in his home.

While searching the home, the soldiers are said to have realised the owner of the home was a tradi-practitioner.

The soldiers then turned the heat on the visiting old man who was shot death.

The soldiers are said to have set his body on fire.

“The past three days have not been easy in the village. The troops have burnt five houses and killed an old man, then they told us, that they will show us what we want by sexually abusing us,” a business lady in one of the squares in Big Babanki narrated.

Talking to MMI on phone, one of the quarter heads in Kejom Keku said: “many people in Big Babanki have escaped to farms and bushes for fear of being brutalized by the soldiers. Young men in the village are escaping because they are the main targets, and I am currently in my in-law’s compound far-off from the road side where my home is located.”

Troops have been deployed permanently in Big Babanki following a request by Fon Benjamin Vutsiboung, traditional ruler of the village.

Fon Vutsiboung had written to government requesting the deployment of the soldiers in Big Babanki.

The request came after Amba boys reportedly abducted and brutalised women in Kejom Keku.

The nearly one hundred women had come out to protest an exhobitant tax Levied on them by the separatists fighters.

The Fon’s request for troops to be deployed to Babanki was widely criticized.

Locals have accused them of breaking into homes, destroying and stealing properties.

By Ndi Fon