Ngarbuh massacre: The loud silence of an investigation commission

Thursday April 9th 2020 marks forty three days after the creation of a commission to investigate the killing of people in Ngarbuh quarter, Ntumbaw village Ndu sub division in Donga Mantung division in the North West region.

The commission was put in place on the 27th of February 2020 on the instructions of president Paul Biya with a mission to investigate the killings and provide a report within eight days. Going by this, Cameroonians expected results of the commission latest the 6th of March 2020.

A resident of Ndu town in Donga Mantung division writing to Mimi Mefo Info says “we feel justice has not been meted on us that lost relatives and property in the course of the manslaughter in Ngarbuh.”

“Why is the government still silent over a month since a commission was created?” He questions in total dismay.

Contacted on phone by Mimi Mefo Info, the senior divisional officer for Donga Mantung division otherwise president of the commission to investigate damages of Ngarbuh massacre says “We carried out the investigation on the human and material damages caused in Ngarbuh. As the president of the commission, I have forwarded to hierarchy and at this point has no right to declare to the press”.

To Simon Nkwenti Ndoh, material and human damages will be made public by the authorities. There have been contrasting figures of the number of people killed in the attack in Ngarbuh on the 14th of February 2020.

According to the Network for the Defence of Human Rights in Central Africa (RHEDAC), more than thirty people were killed. The number include children and a pregnant woman, figures the government of Cameroon has so far contested.

Cameroon’s ministry of defence says five persons died in Ngarbuh not as a result of shooting by the military but a fire incident that erupted from illicit fuel supposedly stored in houses in Ngarbuh. As Cameroonians impatiently await independent and impartial investigation of all atrocities committed in the North West and South West regions since 2016 when the Anglophone crisis started, government has launched a plan to reconstruct the two regions.

With the appointment of Paul Tasong as the Coordinator and Njong Donatus as deputy coordinator of the reconstruction and development plan, critics sense a well calculated plan by the government to down play pains caused on the people and probably let perpetrators go unpunished. The war for the restoration of Ambazonia statehood it should be noted is still on and the military continues to combat separatists. Kidnappings and payment of ransom, respect of Monday traditional ghost town is still the order of the day in the North West and South West regions.

Mimi Mefo Info.