Locals In Pain As Ambazonia Fighters Lockdown Boyo Division After Military Raid
The people of Boyo Division have cried out loud against the high handedness of Ambazonian fighters operating in the division. For close to three weeks now, the road linking Bamenda and the Division’s three subdivisions of Belo, Njinikom and Fundong have remained closed. Separatist fighters blocked the road late last month in an attempt to …
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The people of Boyo Division have cried out loud against the high handedness of Ambazonian fighters operating in the division. For close to three weeks now, the road linking Bamenda and the Division’s three subdivisions of Belo, Njinikom and Funding has remained closed. Separatist fighters blocked the road late last month in an attempt to frustrate a military operation that was launched by the Cameroon army in the division. Since the military left on the 31st of August after a 6-day offensive on the fighters, the road to Boyo Division has remained closed. Last week, the governor of the Northwest region and his entourage used the road thanks to armoured cars to Fundong and held a successful meeting in Fundong in preparation of the upcoming regional elections. The Division that is hosting the St. Martin the Pores Hospital in Njinikom and the Mbingo Baptist Hospital is now cut off from the rest of the world. Though few patients can make it to Mbingo, no car makes it into Belo Town and beyond. Drugs can not reach the hospitals in time as well as fresh supplies from Bamenda. Locals who had travelled to the Division for a holiday can’t make it back to main town Bamenda. Patients who are suffering from non-communicable diseases managed from homes like diabetes and hypertension are at the point of near-death as drugs and insulin can’t leave Bamenda to the Division. Even corpses can only reach the Division under cut-throat negotiations with Ambazonia fighters who extort money from the bereaved family and often impose the number of mourners to accompany the corpse. According to Louisa Mughom, Boyo freedom fighters have graduated into real oppressors as they do not have at heart the feelings of those they say they are fighting for.“How can they block the road for over two weeks now? How will that give them independence? I had to pay ten thousand francs ($17,95) for a bike to transport me and my daughter from Njinikom to Mbingo, a distance I can pay my car for a thousand ($1,5). Even at Mbingo, I had to pay three thousand to reach Bamenda, a distance of one thousand. Now I have to reach Yaoundé without foodstuffs. The bike could not carry the corn, cocoyams and plantains I had to travel with. I’m ashamed of my division,” she said. Stephen Song, resident in Nkwen Bamenda narrates that his father who is a diabetic patient might soon die because of the roadblock.“My father lives in insulin. I have to buy it each time here in Bamenda and send home. Now the stock is fast finishing and I can’t send more just because the road is blocked and for no reason”.
Ayoniaboh Pricilla could not attend the burial of her father in Fundong because of the blockade “the fighters asked that only my mother should accompany the Hiace (vehicle) to the village for the burial. How can I be here in Bamenda, my father dies, and I can’t go for his burial because of people who are my liberators? It’s a shame”. Boyo Division is one of the strongholds of the Ambazonia fighters who are much active in the Division. It was in Belo that the first attack on the para-military gendarmerie elements was launched, sowing the seed for the gun battles that have crippled the Division in all ramifications.
