Tension in Bakassi, Cameroonian military reinforces, Biafra League warns of more bloodshed

There is rising tension in the Bakassi Peninsula as Cameroonian government mobilise heavy military reinforcement in Isangele, a border community in the Peninsula, after five soldiers of the Cameroonian Rapid d’intervention Battalion (BIR) were killed last Saturday by separatist militants suspected to be members of the Black Marine, an affiliate militant squad of the Biafra Nations League. The Biafra Nations League (BNL) has warned that the military reinforcement in the Peninsula by the Cameroonian Defence Headquarters will cause more bloodshed. The Biafra Nations League, therefore, appealed to its members, supporters, and sympathizers in the Bakassi Peninsula to remain calm and not be intimidated by the military reinforcement by Cameroon.

The leader of the Biafra Nations League in the Bakassi Peninsula, Ita Bassey, has enjoined BNL members to be calm, and do not panic over the military reinforcement by Cameroon in the border territory. Ita Bassey had assured that the Biafra Nations League members do not have any intention to engaged in any kind of violence in the Peninsula. He cautioned that the military reinforcement by Cameroon “will only cause more bloodshed” [in the territory].

Residents of Isangele community have been enveloped with palpable fear that the Cameroonian military is reinforcement its troops to battle the separatists militants in the Peninsula after last Saturday’s casualties on five Cameroonian soldiers.

The militant wing of the separatist Biafra Nations League (BNL) in the Bakassi Peninsula, the Gulf of Guinea, and other waterways of the border communities between Nigeria and Cameroon, Black Marine, had last Saturday confronted a military unit of Cameroon, the Rapid d’intervention Battalion (BIR), killing five Cameroonian soldiers. The five soldiers attached to the Rapid d’intervention Battalion (BIR) of the Cameroonian military were said to be killed by militants suspected to be members of the Black Marine in a resistance battle to prevent the Cameroonian soldiers from invading their camp in Isangele.

Ita Bassey had acknowledged the confrontation between the Black Marine force of BNL, and the Cameroonian military at the weekend, saying that the militants acted in self-defense to protect the camp against invasion by the Cameroonian military.

He had narrated that the Cameroonian military had arrived the camp vicinity in three gunboats with the intention to invade the camp and take away weapons.  He stated that the soldiers were not aware the boys     were in camp as they encroached the territory.    Ita Bassey said that before the Cameroonian forces could start shooting on approaching the camp, the boys opened fire on them.

“They thought that nobody was in the camp; they wanted to go and take all the arms and ammunition, but met their waterloo, as the boys opened fire on them few kilometers from the camp,” Ita Bassey had declared.

Local sources had said that the Rapid d’intervention Battalion (BIR) personnel had pulled down two wooden poles being hung with Biafran flags at about 2 kilometers away from the militants’ camp in Isangele at about 9.00am Saturday morning, and thereafter, started advancing towards the camp when they met swift resistance from the militants.

The locals had also disclosed that they sighted two military drone cameras hovering around the border communities on Friday evening before the incursion of the Cameroonian forces on Saturday morning, which was eventually resisted by the militants.

The killing of the five soldiers of the Cameroonian military by the militants had compelled the Rapid d’intervention Battalion (BIR) to retreat and vacate the war zone.

One of the militants was said to have been killed in the exchange of gunfire.