At least two people have been killed and several others injured in what appeared to be a crossfire between Ambazonia separatist fighters and the Cameronian defense forces in Bamunka, Ndop, Ngoketunja Division of the North West Region.
A government soldier and a separatist fighter were also injured during the shooting, according to local sources.
The incident occurred Wednesday, October 9, as the population was accompanying the hearse of a popular figure for burial.
Local sources say, following his removal from the Ndop District Hospital mortuary, a church service was held before being conveyed for burial.
Security forces, sources say, infiltrated the population as commercial motorcycle riders and separatists got a tip off and launched an attack.
At a bridge between Messi and Mbanka in Ndop, armed separatists blocked the population, firing shots in the air that provoked a response from security forces who were among the population.
“When the boys fired across the bridge the military said that is what they wanted and that we (the population) were dead,” a survivor of the shooting told MMI.
The old man killed was a brother to the deceased.
Some sources alleged that the separatists came to collect ‘Liberation tax’ from the population and in the process, they were intercepted by the military and a shootout ensured, leading to the deaths of the victims.
Casualties, including critical cases, were ferried to nearby health facilities for medical attention.
She added, “We were confused as bullets were flying from both sides. As we were struggling for safety some people were shot. An old man and a woman died on the spot in my very eyes. So many people were wounded including an Amba boy and a military man.”
“My grandmother was shot in the leg but thank God the bullet did not penetrate that much,” another source told MMI.
Clashes between security forces and armed separatists have been recurrent in the eight years armed conflict in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions where separatist militants are fighting to create a state called Ambazonia.
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