The regional Director at Bamenda Hospital has sent a distress call to Bamenda denizens to pass at the mortuary and identify corpses abandoned. In his message, he said failure to do so on or before September 25, the unidentified corpses shall be handed over to the city council for mass burial.

It should be recalled that Paul Biya, President of Cameroun declared war on Southern Cameroonians. Since then, there has been a steady genocide perpetrated on the people of Southern Cameroons through military actions. More than 400.000 Southern Cameroonians have been internally displaced, most of whom have sought refuge in the bushes with over 50.000 seeking refuge in Nigeria. The Cameroun military has burnt down over 126 villages and communities in Southern Cameroons.

The present genocide moves from Biya military is that civilians are summarily killed, tagged with red cloths and Dane guns to insinuate they are Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces as red and black with Dane guns have become a trademark of the self-defense forces popularly known as Amba boys.

It is now clear that most of the unidentified corpses in Bamenda mortuary are civilians murdered by the military and dumped at the mortuary. This is so because those who lost loved ones and kept in the mortuary will naturally go for them when they are ready. It has now become a common practice that Southern Cameroons parents always go to the mortuary to search for their missing relatives and most often, they meet the lifeless body of their children, relatives sleeping in the mortuary. Most parents have also been forced to sign fake medical certificates claiming their children died of natural cause or some form of medical ailment whereas they were killed in cold blood by Cameroun military. A situation which has forced many relatives to abandoned corpses in the mortuary. This situation is not only akin to Bamenda, but it is also a common scenario across the entire counties in Southern Cameroons. THE WAR IS INDEED REAL.

Mark Bareta