Ernest Sumelong
20 October 2008
One pirate was reportedly killed and others wounded Saturday, October 18, in a fire exchange between Cameroonian soldiers and pirates in the now unstable Bakassi Peninsula.
The Post learnt that five assailants, said to be Niger Delta rebels, in two speed boats, opened fire on Cameroonian soldiers at a fishing port called Jabane by 11 am, Saturday, October 18.
According to a military source in Bakassi, some five assailants in two speed boats attacked a fishing boat on the Cameroonian territorial waters in a boundary area between Cameroon and Bakassi before Cameroonian soldiers pushed back the rebels shooting three out of the five assailants.
"After the assailants attacked, Cameroonian soldiers mobilised and pushed back the incursions, shooting three of the five assailants. Two of them in the other boat succeeded to get to the other side of the sea to the Nigerian side and it is difficult to tell whether the others survived because we could not go near," he said.
According to a communiqué signed by Cameroon's Minister of Defense, Remy Ze Meka, the assailants who were on board two speed boats attacked and wounded some of the Cameroonian soldiers. The communiqué states that the Cameroonian soldiers reacted by pursuing the assailants who fled towards Nigeria.
This is the first major attack in the Bakassi area after the Nigerian government finally ceded the entire Peninsular to Cameroon on August 14. Before and after August 14, rebel groups that opposed the handover had promised they would continue to fight for the area.
Recently, Cameroonian soldiers captured 11 supposed pirates in the Bakassi area and brought them to the Gendarmerie Brigade in Buea, where they were behind closed doors and later taken to an unknown destination. The pirates were arrested just two weeks following pirates attack on Limbe and the robbery of banks, which resulted in the death of two people.
Unlike before, when rebels groups took Cameroonian soldiers by surprise, the soldiers seem to be more vigilant, especially in the wake of several attacks and beefed up security around the coastal areas.
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