Ernest Sumelong & Walter Wilson Nana
10 December 2007
But for the intervention of police officers, irate University of Buea students and people staying around students' hostels would have lynched some Equato-Guineans living there.
Over 150 Equato-Guineans, who were escaping being lynched, sought refuge at the police post in Molyko while others locked up themselves in their rooms.Police officers and the local administration defied a volley of stones and a surging student crowd just to protect the foreigners.
The local administration included the Divisional Officer for Buea, Yves Bertrand Awounfac Alienou, the Provincial Delegate for National Security, Hayatou Dahirou, the Secretary General at the Governor's office, Bernard Mesape Ndode, Police Commissioners, a Colonel in the Gendarmerie and elements of the Mobile Intervention Unit, GMI.
In spite of the beefy security at the police post, a huge crowd of students trooped near the police station demanding the lives of the foreigners. The motley crowd hurled stones indiscriminately at the police and the administrative officials. To ensure the safety of the administrative officials and the foreigners trapped at the police post, the police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
The teargas affected even your reporters.The local administration, The Post learned, made arrangements for vehicles to ferry the Equato-Guineans to Douala in the early hours of the morning.
The Crisis
The local people were incensed when they got reports earlier that Cameroonians living in Equatorial Guinea had been beaten, five of them reportedly killed and their businesses confiscated.
According to the reports, after two banks were robbed in Equatorial Guinea, security officers claimed a Cameroonian was one of the suspects. Their claim was based on the fact that they identified a passport purportedly belonging to a Cameroonian.
This caused the Guinean security officers, alongside their citizens, to use the opportunity to harass and molest foreigners, especially Cameroonians and Nigerians, according to the reports.
About 9000 Cameroonians reportedly sought refuge at the Cameroon Embassy in Malabo and the Consulate in Bata, Equatorial Guinea.The Cameroon Consul in Bata, Justin Joel Abessolo, confirmed the incident to a local French tabloid, Mutations, but did not reveal anything relating to the deaths.
The Post learned that Equato-Guinean parents who had suspected that the incident in their country might affect their children staying in Cameroon, sent word through their Consular Officer in Douala, asking their children to leave Buea, where most of them study.
Some of them were about to pack off to Douala when the university community got wind of the news and closed in on them.
By midday on Thursday, November 6, students had gathered in small groups and began searching the residences of Equato-Guineans, some of whom they beat up. Security officers in Buea were called in time to save some of the foreigners from the embittered mob. Equally, executive members of the University of Buea Students' Union, UBSU, intervened and helped ferry several Equato-Guinean students to the police post.
A University of Buea student, who preferred anonymity, told The Post that Equato-Guineans have on several occasions beaten and allegedly killed Cameroonians in their country. "We did not want to kill any of them, but we wanted to send a message to their parents that we are unhappy with the way they treat our brothers out there.
We live with them peacefully here and treat them well, but they continue to molest and harass our people in their country," he said in fury.Another student, whom The Post talked to, said the police would have allowed them to pay back the Equato-Guineans in their own coins.
"If they have the right to live and feel free here, our brothers too, should have the same treatment there. These Guineans are very uncultured; they play loud music in the hostels and have no respect for anyone. We cannot sit and fold our arms while our brothers are maltreated out there. Our president is too soft; he has always been silent on the issue but we cannot let things go like that," the student intimated.
Meantime, local administrative officials could not be available to comment on the matter.
Recently, a similar incident reportedly occurred in Equatorial Guinea where hundreds of Cameroonians where bundled and deported to Cameroon without justification. Most of those who were deported had their businesses seized and others had even their dresses stripped off.
The issue irked many Cameroonian parents who saw their children disgraced and deprived of their property. The incident also strained diplomatic relations between the two countries until the Head of State of Equatorial Guinea, Theodoro Obiang Nguema, dispatched an envoy to meet Cameroon's President, Paul Biya, on the issue.
Besides Ebolowa in the South Province where Equato-Guineans are believed to have the largest population, Buea reportedly has the largest Equato-Guinean student population.
Most of them read Management, Accounting, Computer Studies and so on at the University of Buea and other private higher institutions of learning.
The Post found out that most of the students studying in Cameroon are children of wealthy and influential Equato-Guineans. In Buea, they allegedly live in the best hostels and exhibit wealth.
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