5 Cameroonians Killed, 5 Wounded And 10 Missing In Central African Republic

Five young Cameroonians have been reported killed while five others were seriously wounded and 10 missing in the locality of d’Yidere, situated  40 kilometres from the Abba sub prefecture, in Central African Republic.

According to family members of the Cameroonians, the group of 20 young Cameroonians had abandoned their belongings at the d’Yidere mining site on Nov. 7 when they were given an ultimatum by Russian mercenaries to quit the site or face grave consequences.

“The 20 returned on Saturday, Nov. 20 to collect their belongings but at the entrance to the town, they came face-to-face with the Russian mercenaries of Wagner Security who killed five of them and wounded five,” said a civil society source.

“The Russians chased the other Cameroonians right to the border with Cameroon. Ten of the Cameroonians cannot be accounted for right now and it is not known whether they are dead or succeeded in crossing over to Cameroon.”

“I think these young Cameroonians took a bad decision to return to d’Yidere. The security situation in that village is not reassuring,” a resident of Lamy-Pont explained, adding that the victims might have thought the security situation in the town had improved in their absence before deciding to return.

One of those wounded said they had gone to retrieve their belongings from the site when they came across the Russians.

“We thought that with government forces in place, calm had already returned to d’Yidere and so we could go there and collect our belongings. All was the contrary,” he said.

On Oct. 31, an operation by soldiers of the Central African Republic national army supported by Russian mercenaries took place in the localities of Lamy-Pont, Nguia-Bouar and d’Yidere forcing more than 3,000 persons working on the mining sites in d’Yidere to abandon their homes and cross the border to Cameroon.