On Friday, August 4th, 2023, a missing person alert was published on the MMI page.
The message read: Her name is Mercy Munsi from Mbipgo Village in Donga Mantung Division. She works with the city council here in Douala, she is 54 years old and lives at the Total petrol station in Nkolbong. She went to visit a sister who lost a brother in an accident at Bocom Yassa. After the visit, she boarded a bike for Total Nkolbong at around 8 p.m.; since then, we’ve neither seen nor heard from her. Her phone is not going through. At the time of her disappearance, she wore a pink top, pink trousers, and white shoes.
The post was barely one day old when relatives reached out to MMI and said Munsi had been found dead.
She had lived in Douala, the commercial city of Cameroon, for several years – and had just been promoted at her job site – when the worst happened.
“She just got promoted at the Douala City Council and was to occupy her new position on Monday,” her sister, who has been inconsolable, told MMI.
Munsi’s case is not isolated. In fact, the MMI newsroom receives at least four to five cases of missing person reports every week.
4 out of 10 of these cases end up being solved, and the family sends messages of gratitude to the team. But some simply vanish, and no one ever hears from them.
“There was no wound on her body. There were marks of strangulation on her neck,” Munsi’s sister told MMI – an indication that she was attacked.
Munsi’s disappearance and murder is not an isolated case. People going missing and never being found have become the new normal in Cameroon today. In some cases, victims are found dead.
It is not known who attacked her. Officials at the 16th Police District in Douala are still investigating the matter.
The victim’s sister also took time to explain how her body was eventually found after a team combed the city several hours prior. “She boarded a bike from Yassa to Total Nkolbong on Thursday. The son waited for her until the morning and then informed us. Immediately, we started the search in the hospitals and police stations, but to no avail. We started looking around in the bushes after depositing a complaint at 16 eme. That is how we found her at the small, short driveway that leads to her house,” she noted.
Relatives are inconsolable. Munsi’s killers are at large.
Many are of the view that personal safety is important, especially given that authorities have failed to take it seriously.
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