Cameroon Minister of Defence, Joseph Assomo, has revealed that four separatists have been killed by government forces after the death of an American missionary in Bambui.
Assomo said in a statement that was released on Wednesday that the terrorists that killed the American missionary, Charles Wesco in Bambui have been neutralised.
On Tuesday, armed separatist fighters blamed government forces for killing the missionary in a crossfire but Assomo denied the allegations, stressing that the missionary was shot by the separatists, whom he called “terrorists.”
According to Assomo, the separatists killed Wesco as they made their way to attack the Bambili Gendarmerie Brigade and the University of Bamenda.
“A lieutenant colonel and a student were injured,” Assomo said.
Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from Indiana, was killed in northwestern Cameroon by a stray bullet during the fight on Tuesday.
Charles, who had been in the region for just two weeks, was rushed to the hospital in Bamenda after he was gravely wounded while in his car. Hospital director Kingue Thomson Njie said,
“he died in our hospital after all attempts to save his life”.
Fighting between government forces and armed separatist groups has displaced more than 200,000 Cameroonians internally, according to the UN.
More than 150 government forces have been killed, according to the Cameroon army.
Clashes started in October 2017 after the separatists declared the “independence” of a nation called “Ambazonia” in the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest