Cameroon Hands Road Construction to Military Following Separatist Attacks, Abduction

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Cameroon’s mil­i­tary has tak­en over con­struc­tion of roads link­ing its trou­bled west­ern regions to Nige­ria after what it said were repeat­ed sep­a­ratist attacks. The mil­i­tary says the rebels abduct­ed eight peo­ple this week, includ­ing road work­ers, who were aban­don­ing work sites due to insecurity. 

Cameroon says scores of gov­ern­ment troops and road con­struc­tion equip­ment of its mil­i­tary engi­neer­ing corps are mov­ing from Yaounde to at least six west­ern towns and vil­lages on the bor­der with Nigeria. 

The equip­ment that depart­ed the cap­i­tal Tues­day includes load­ers, bull­doz­ers, dump trucks and com­pactors, the mil­i­tary says.

Defense Min­is­ter Joseph Beti Asso­mo told par­lia­ment this week that Pres­i­dent Paul Biya ordered the mil­i­tary engi­neer­ing corps to take over con­struc­tion of the road link­ing the Kum­ba and Ekon­do-Titi districts.

Asso­mo said a major­i­ty of civil­ian road con­struc­tion engi­neers aban­doned work fol­low­ing repeat­ed armed attacks and destruc­tion of equip­ment by sep­a­ratist fighters.

He said army forces are capa­ble of tak­ing over the work.

Asso­mo said besides its reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pa­tion in com­bat oper­a­tions, forces of Cameroon’s mil­i­tary engi­neer­ing corps are trained and have a wide range of expe­ri­ence in con­struct­ing pub­lic edi­fices, includ­ing build­ings and roads. He said only Biya, who is com­man­der in chief of the armed forces, autho­rizes the mil­i­tary to con­struct roads in areas deemed nec­es­sary or where there are armed conflicts.

The road is part of the gov­ern­men­t’s efforts to recon­struct the west­ern areas dev­as­tat­ed by the sep­a­ratist con­flict that has claimed 3,500 lives and dis­placed 750,000 people.

The gov­ern­ment says eight civil­ians includ­ing road con­struc­tion work­ers were abduct­ed by sep­a­ratist fight­ers from a bus on Mon­day in Ekondo-Titi.

Sep­a­ratists have claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the abduc­tions but have not made any requests for ran­som, as is usu­al­ly the case when work­ers are kid­napped in Cameroon’s west­ern regions.

Mukete Ekoko, a tra­di­tion­al ruler in Kum­ba, said when con­struct­ed, the road will increase trade between Cameroon and a mar­ket of 180 mil­lion peo­ple in Nige­ria and reduce pover­ty in bor­der towns and vil­lages. He said he was hap­py that the mil­i­tary is tak­ing over the con­struc­tion of the road.

“This is the most impor­tant project for the time being, to take us to the next stage and that is why we the chiefs, we take it so impor­tant, we take it so seri­ous­ly and we want the author­i­ties to know that we are thank­ful,” he said.

The Cameroon mil­i­tary says civil­ians should denounce fight­ers hid­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty and harass­ing civil­ians. The mil­i­tary says it will assure the safe­ty of peo­ple and prop­er­ty in the area and com­plete the 60-kilo­me­ter road in less than three months.

Njume Peter Ambang, a law­mak­er from Cameroon’s South­west region where Kum­ba and Ekon­do-Titi are locat­ed, said youths who join sep­a­ratists because they are unem­ployed will have oppor­tu­ni­ties to sell their crops when the road is developed.

“We have tak­en the engage­ment to tell these boys who are dis­turb­ing this road that, please, enough is enough, to please not dis­turb this road again,” he said.

Eng­lish-speak­ing armed groups have been fight­ing for the seces­sion of two west­ern regions from the rest of Cameroon and its French-speak­ing major­i­ty since 2017.

The last major move by Cameroon’s mil­i­tary to take over the con­struc­tion of roads was on the north­ern bor­ders with Chad and Nige­ria in 2018 after Chi­nese con­trac­tors aban­doned the work fol­low­ing repeat­ed attacks from armed Boko Haram fighters.