BY SIMON NDIVE KALLA
Over 1800 young soldiers of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, better known by its French acronym BIR, graduated from Man- O- war bay training center in Limbe on Thursday November 21, with a call to be patriotic and ready to sacrifice to defend the nation.
While officiating over the graduation ceremony, the minister delegate at the presidency in charge of defense, Joseph Beti Assomo, instructed the young soldiers to work with the population at all time.
Joseph Beti called on the soldiers to be professional and respect international and humanitarian laws and human right whenever they will be call upon to serve.
He equally thanked the people of the South West Region and Fako in particular for assisting the defense forces to ensure that there is peace in the Region.
According to Beti Assomo, the 10 edition of end of course ceremony of CAT1 Commando Infantry of Soldiers of the 2017 batch is graduating soldiers who are ready to take on terrorists, criminals and separatists whose aim is to destabilize the integrity of the nation.
Presenting the commandos to the minister Beti Assomo and the public, the commander of the Etat major, Dansaka Rene said, for five months, the soldiers went through tough training. Training which took into consideration the present security context of Cameroon so as to counter terrorists, mixed combat in the air, land and sea was part of the training program, the program took the soldiers into war zones like Fotokol, Kolfata, Kalfou among others places to experience how terrorist are fought first hand.
The ceremony which attended by a huge population was marked by unity parade and displays as the minister took time off to have an in camera security meeting with the security officers. At the end of the graduation ceremony the soliders expressed joy for successful training despite the challenging political crisis in North West and South West Region and the Boko Haram in Far North.