By SAH TERENCE ANIMBOM
The Fru family is the latest to record unimaginable pain inflicted it, following the death of one of its daughters, as well as the hospitalization of another, after the two were indiscriminately shot. Fru Carine, 24, and Fru Melisa were brutally shot three times each on exactly the same positions by uniform men in their Ngomgham residence, on Thursday July 4, 2019 at about 12:30 pm, after they innocently answered “Yes we are anglophones” to some heavily armed men in uniform. Carine died on the spot while Melisa was taken to the hospital three hours later and is responding to treatment at press time, contrary to social media reports that she is dead.
The deceased, Fru Carine, was a nurse formerly working with Abii Clinic in Ngomgham Bamenda and, she and her younger sister Melisa, are children of Fru Christopher, the North West Regional President of the Bike Riders Union.
Reports say it was around noon that Thursday, when some Amba boys stormed the residence of a military officer whose name The SUN is yet to confirm, somewhere behind the former council at the Ngomgham neighborhood. They shot and killed the said military officer and escaped into the bushes after Sacred Heart College Mankon, leaving the helpless population at the mercy of angry military officers.
An inhabitant who was packing some of his necessary items to leave the locality as many others had done when The SUN newspaper’s reporter arrived the scene of the incident narrated that “We were home when we heard a very loud sound which I can’t say it was the sound of a gun because it sounded more like a Bomb. Some neighbours ran to my house telling me there was a corpse lying just some meters away from my house here. They said the Amba boys had shot and killed a military man who was leaving in an apartment just in the next compound. Everyone started running away from the quarter and I ran into my house with my family and we stayed quiet until at about 1 pm or so, when the military arrived and met their colleague in his own pool of blood. The next thing we heard were heavy gunshots and military breaking into these houses, (pointing at the door where Carine and kid sister stayed with their Family). We heard Carine crying and begging that they did not know anything and that they should not shoot them. As the crying was still going on, we heard about six gunshots coming from the house and heard her wail in pain. We immediately concluded that all was not well for her and her kid sister.”
Melisa recounts her experience of what she saw before passing out. “We ran into the house and locked the doors and stayed there, then later on the military came and we heard gunshots. Soon they started breaking doors, then got to our door and smashed it open and came in. They saw Carine in the palour and asked her to kneel down. I heard them ask her are you anglophone? And she said yes. They were very wild and accused her of haven seen the Amba boys shoot the military officer living just opposite our compound. I heard her crying and saying she knows nothing and the next thing I heard was three gunshots, then heard her shout and her voice started dying down. They came into the room and met me on the bed and shot me three times on three different spots and took my android phone away. I felt my throat drying off when they had left and managed to creep to the kitchen where I got enough water and drank, then took a smaller phone to call my mother and tell her what had happened, then crept back to the room where I was shot.”
While at the hospital, The SUN also spoke with Fru Christopher the girls’ father. “My wife called me to tell me she was called from the quarter and asked not to come back that there was serious shooting in the quarter and the military had entered our house. Later she called to say our daughter had been shot. I immediately rushed home to see what had happened and this was about two hours and thirty minutes after they were shot. I was shocked to get into the house and see my precious daughter Carine lying down in her pool of blood already dead. She had been shot on the neck, close to the left breast and around her stomach on the right. I moved inside and was shocked that Melisa, her second follower had been shot almost exactly the same way as a bullet narrowly missed her neck and hit her on the joint between the shoulder and the neck and the one aimed at her left breast rather hit below the breast towards her ribs and the one aimed at her stomach like her sister hit her further to the right end of her stomach. It is a miracle that she is alive. I immediately called doctors without borders and went up to the road to show them the way to the house and that is how we rushed my girls to the hospital where in my wildest imagination of Carine’s death was confirmed. If Carine had not helped the junior brother Collins to hide in the ceiling, he too would have been shot especially as he is a young boy of about 19. They thought they were girls and that it was not necessary for them to hide much since it is often thought that the target is boys. It hurts me badly to lose my first child under such circumstances. I pray her blood goes to seek justice and bring an end to this carnage” he ended.