- Announces closure of 15 parishes in restive Mamfe Diocese
- Soldiers ramp up scorch earth policy
The Bishop of Mamfe, His Lordship Andrew Nkea has accused Cameroon’s Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, for lies-telling on the facts concerning the death of Rev. Fr. Cosmas Ondari of the Saint Martin of Tours Parish in Kembong.
His Lordship, Andrew Nkea, in an interview with the BBC’s Focus on Africa, Friday, November 23, debunked a purported claim from the Minister that the Kenyan Priest was not killed by Cameroonian Military officers. “He does not live in Mamfe, I live in Mamfe, and this did not happen in the night. It happened during the day. We are not arguing over truth. I just beg Mr. Minister to verify what he is saying before he goes on the air. Because it is very disheartening that we are Cameroonians, we are suffering and our Minister will be talking about something he does not know. I am on the ground. I live here! The Minister does not live in Mamfe. He doesn’t even know where Kembong is,” Bishop Nkea said as if in tears.
According to the Bishop, the 33-year-old Kenyan missionary, ordained last year (on March 26, 2017) was killed by the Cameroonian military in Kembong, a locality in Mamfe, in Cameroon’s restive South West Region on Wednesday November 21.
“I went to Kembong myself to meet the Christians there who were with Father at the mission at the time he was shot. They explained to me that, there was a military vehicle that was coming into the village and as they were driving into the village, they were shooting. Father tried to escape around the Church but he was shot at the door of the Church, the bullet got him and he fell there,” Bishop Nkea narrated.
“The other Christians managed to run away to the back of the church. There was a seminarian who was also there. They ran into the Fathers’ house and some ran into other places. Yesterday I was there. I counted myself, 21 bullet holes on the front of the Church.”
“They were actually shooting into the church,” he added.
As one who went down to the field to see things for himself, +Nkea described how the situation was and how the circumstances under which the Kenyan priest was killed.
“If you go to the place like I did yesterday, you will actually see some of the bullets that passed through the window and cracked the wall next to the altar…It was around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. There were just a few Christians with the Catechist who were cleaning the Church. Father was standing in front of the Church and when they were passing – it looks like when they are entering the village, they are trying to scare people or what I don’t know – but as they were driving into the village, they were shooting at random because, after the mission, they continued shooting as they were going on to their barracks. The shooting did not stop at the Church. They continued shooting. There was another man who also was shot and he died.”
On whether there has been any official reaction to this and if someone will be charged for the killing of Father Cosmas, Bishop Nkea had this to say:
“Just like you people are talking from a distance, we are we are seeing deaths every day. Nobody is being charge. We will make some noise about it but in the end, what will come out of it?”
Bishop Nkea, compelled by the level of insecurity in his Diocese, has reduced the number of parishes in Mamfe Diocese.
“… I have closed down 15 parishes, I am not joking. I have closed down 15 parishes because of the insecurity. All the people have abandoned, they have run away. It is a very difficult situation for all of us and for the people who are gathered around Father Cosmas.”
The Bishop says Fr. Cosmas was working with one other Ugandan priest, a Mill Hill Missionary on leave.
He says he cannot send anybody to go to the affected parish now. “That will not be fair to the person because most of the persons were telling me, ‘oh Bishop you begged us to come out of the bush and now they are shooting at us we are going back to the bush’.”
“So, I am stranded. The priest who was guarding the people has been killed and they will all scatter again,” he lamented.
As to whether the church is being targeted, Bishop Nkea cried that he doesn’t know. “I wouldn’t know but a priest was killed in Buea, a seminarian in Bamenda and now another one has been killed her in Mamfe. The other time, one of my priests was arrested in front of the church and stripped naked by the same military. I don’t know what they want.
Responding a question on whether he feels safe, Bishop Nkea retorted: “How can I feel safe, I don’t sleep in the night. When I sleep in the night, at the bang of every door, I jump up from my bed and go under, because I don’t know who is coming or what is happening. Nobody feels safe. If I am the Bishop, and I feel like this, how much more of the common people? But I cannot abandon the simple innocent people who are just living their lives in their villages. I have to be with them. They are Cameroonians who love their country. They just want to live in peace but they are not safe.”
A source claims that the military was on a mission to torch the home of a certain Ntongancha Etchokogbemba Clarisse believed to have links with secessionists. The said lady is purportedly on the run especially after they had planned to produce a documentary on military excesses in Anglophone Cameroon. Some houses are said to have been burnt in the Banya area, but it is not known if all the houses belong to suspected separatists.
Buea-based upcoming artists, Franz Epizitone who was part of the documentary production crew had earlier been killed along with six others at Bakweri Town on August 30, 2018.