Military brutality on Anglophones: ‘legalized’ crime?

Another resident of Buea in Cameroon’s South West Region has shared his encounter with the dreaded Rapid Intervention Battalion, the BIR.

This elite unit of the Cameroonian army prides itself with atrocities including the summary execution of women and their babies in the Far North. Aside from extrajudicial killings in the North West and South West regions, they have also gained notoriety in burning houses.

On May 15, 2019, the BIR burnt over 70 homes in Mankon, Bamenda.

Instead of securing the population, the Israeli-trained force has rather made life unbearable for the civilian population.

Below is the story of one of their latest victims??

“On a calm morning, I was walking up to the Mile 17 Express Union. Upon arriving at the Military unit set up at Mile 17, my two younger brothers and I were stopped by a military man dressed in the B.I.R Uniform. He told us in a very poor pidgin English “not forcing you but look me something”.

We told him we didn’t have money and his second sentence was “do you know that I can implicate you”? and I told him if that will make him happy.

He proceeded by ordering us to get into the other side of the fence. I pulled out my U.S Army ID after I previously presented a Cameroon national ID and he didn’t even look at it.

He then let us go when he felt intimidated by the U.S army ID. I don’t know what could have been our fate, had it been I had no military background.