The Hunt for killers of Muyuka woman

 By Joe Atumba

When suspected   separatists beheaded 32-year Comfort Sirri Tumasang in Muyuka in August 2020, the terrible act drew wide-spread condemnation from rights groups and the general public.

The deceased was buried on August 15 at her family compound at Makanga quarter, Muyuka but Cameroon security forces are searching for her killers.

 Cameroon government  has vowed not only to fish out perpetrators of the macabre act, but  on August 18 sent  Confiance Ebune, director at the Prime Minister’s office and special envoy of Prime Minister Dion Ngute to Muyuka to condole with deceased’s mother. The PM’s envoy was accompanied to Muyuka by Southwest Governor, Bernard Okalia Bilai.

 After   the delegation extended Government’s sympathies to the bereaved family, the deceased’s deflated mother alerted the PM’s delegation that separatists had also threatened to burn her Makanga –Muyuka residence for allowing the burial of her daughter, Comfort there.

 Comfort was accused by separatists of betraying them by collaborating with government forces who are out to neutralize separatist fighters. She was labeled as backleg by the armed group.

Cameroon labels separatist fighters as terrorists, and the latter could face up to the death sentence in the country.

According to sources,with the search for the killers of Comfort Sirri intensifying, certain Ms. Josephine Djougang a nurse in Yaounde is said to be on the run. Her search is not because she is a separatist fighter, but because reports claimed she had treated an injured and sick separatist fighter named E. Enoh in a private clinic in Yaoundé.

The said Enoh whose whereabouts is unknown is suspected of having links with the killers of comfort Sirri . Said to be a separatist fighter in Muyuka, security operatives believe he could know more about separatist fighters’ locations there.

The search for Josephine is reportedly to find out if she has direct links with separatist fighters because she administered treatment to E. Enoh. She is suspected of having some information about their activities.

According to sources,  Josephine  is running for fear that she could be killed, since some hospitals where separatist fighters were  receiving treatment had reportedly been attacked by the military, searching for them.

 Since the Anglophone crisis started in 2016, thousands of both civilians and security officers/soldiers have lost their lives as government forces clash regularly with separatists, who seeking the independence of minority-English speakers from the majority French speakers. Hundreds of houses and villages   have been burnt to ashes, many in desperation and agony.

Hundreds of thousands are internally displaced (IDPs), while over 40 thousand Cameroonians are seeking asylum in neighboring Nigeria. Many others have fled the country to the USA,Europe,Asia and other  parts of the world for safety purposes.

 About 20% of Cameroon’s population of about 24 million is English speakers and 80% French-speakers. The English-speakers  since their union with French-speakers in 1961 have been complaining of their  gross marginalization .