Seven soldiers accused of the cold-blooded killing of two women and their children in the town of Zelevet, in the far north of Cameroon, will be tried behind closed doors on January 20 2020 by a military court, APA has learned from an authoritative source.
By Félix Cyriaque Ebolé Bola
The killings, which took place in late March and early April 2015, became a national scandal when three years later, in July 2018, when a footage of the massacre emerged on social media.
The video shows men in uniform hunting down the Islamist sect Boko Haram, shooting at point-blank range two infants and their blindfolded mothers.
The four bodies were then summarily buried at the foot of a mountain called “Vizi Kokor Vegebi.”
At first, the government dismissed it as “fake news,” which can be likened to “an unfortunate attempt to transfigure reality and intoxicate the public, a horrible trick.”
However, in the face of the outcry, President Paul Biya ordered an inquiry, “in accordance with established practice.”
The Cameroonian army, both in the Far North, which is in the throes of terrorist attacks, and in the English-speaking regions of the North-West and South-West, which are mired in a separatist conflict, is regularly blamed for abuses against civilians.
FCEB/cat/lb/as/APA