By Sah Terence Animbom
A fresh phase of violence by heavily armed Fulani Men believed to be coming from Nigeria but looking like military men at some point has hit Koshin village once more since the March 5, 2019 incidence of last year, that saw the burning of houses and killing of six persons by means of butchering and gunshots.
Just a month short to make it one year since the last attack, there was yet another attack on the village on February 5, 2020, that saw the burning of over a hundred houses in the village, including the palace of Fon Ju Wilson III of Koshin.
Since then, the inhabitants of the village have fled into even further bushes from those they hitherto fled to during the March 5, 2019 raid. They have taken refuge in Fang, Bafmen, and many are fleeing again from Bafmen to Fundong in Boyo division with the aim of making their way through to Douala or Yaounde where they can have some farms to stay and cultivate.
It would appear the fleeing villagers also had an unsafe environment in Bafmen where Fulani cattle rearers are in a fierce fight over local cattle rearers for their cows and grazing lands. On Monday February 17, 2020 around Imo in Bafmen, some Fulani herdsmen seized the cows of some local cattle rearers in Bafmen which sparked some serious tension between the two communities and ended up chasing away the refugees from their communities.
In Kuk not far from Bafmen, there was a military raid that led to the burning of three houses and killing of two on Tuesday, February 18, 2020 also causing more panic in the hearts of the fleeing Koshin villagers.
The SUN spoke to Bum Jonas, a family head of 14 family members fleeing from the attacks in Koshin and Fang, another village situated a bit further from Koshin who narrated as ollows: “When they came the first time and burnt our houses in March 2019, we ran away to neighbouring villages and to Nigeria for safety for a while, then returned to Cameroon to take refuge in nearby villages though we stayed in the bushes where people farm. We thought it was getting over until when they came again recently and attacked us again killing three people. This time around, they were just mixed and disguised in a way that you couldn’t tell if it was the army, the Fulanis or who but we noted that they were mainly the Fulanis and we are told that they come from Nigeria. I lost three of my family members in the first attack including my son Bum Desmond. All our houses have been burnt. This time around my sister’s son was killed and they did not burn only the grass houses as they did last year but they gathered more grass and set our houses with corrugated iron sheets on fire. Even our palace is down and everyone has left the village.”
“When we left the village, we thought we could hide in Fang, a village not too far from us but while there, we also noticed that there was killing there and the people too were fleeing so we had to continue trekking with the children through the forests. We have been with the children in the bushes for two weeks. We moved from Fang to Ajumbum, to Fungom, to Chah Fungom, to Chah Mmen, to Bafmen and then to Fundong. This movement took us three days of trekking through bushes and stopping to sleep when the night falls. Moving with little children as many as fourteen in a family is not easy” he added.
Another victim The SUN spoke to is Akan Raphael, a head of a family of seven among them five little children of less than 10 years each, who narrated his own side of the ordeal: “We thought this issue was over when six members of our community were killed last year. We had escaped into the bushes and remained there until they came again this year. It would appear they do not want us anywhere around the village because they got into the village this time around and burnt up everywhere and came chasing us out of the neighbouring villages where we had taken refuge like Kang and Fang. We have been moving in the bushes and hiding from village to village till we got here” he explained.
Somewhere around Bafmen, a truck driver from Fundong by name Mr Alain transporting sand from Kuk to Fundong met and helped transport a family of eight, trekking with six little boys and girls of not more than 10 years old each, who were, for the first time in two weeks of trekking and sleeping in strange villages, relieved from 15 kilo meters of trekking From Bafmen to Fundong.
As soon as the Mayor for Fundong, Denis Awoh Ndang saw them in their numbers with about 50 already installed in his municipality, he offered to give them a place to sleep and some food to eat. They have been redistributed into families and sent to live with some persons of goodwill on Fundong while waiting for the ban on movement from Fundong to Njinikom to be lifted by ‘Ambazonian restoration fighters’ in Njinikom who are punishing the population of Fundong Sub Division for having voted in the last twin elections. In all there are about one hundred and fifteen Koshin inhabitants currently trapped in Fundong with no means to go further.
Koshin is found in Fungon sub division in the Menchum division that shares bounds with Furu-Awa sub division, a sub division that shares bounds with Nigeria to the North. It is a two days journey on foot from Koshin to Nigeria and the local population is mainly into farming. The reason for the trend of attacks from armed Fulani men believed to be entering from faraway Nigeria is what has remained a puzzle to many. This is so because Menchum is prone to such kind of attacks on the local population that are sometimes allegedly backed by the government forces like the case of the Fulani attacks on people in Wum some months back. Many thus question if this one has any links with government forces or it is actually the usual group that had from time to time hit the Menchum even before the Anglophone Crisis.