Rebels abducted the duo in Mile 14 Dibanda Sunday, December 13, 2020, along with their peer, Chief Ngale Ikome.

“Chief Ngale Ikome of Mile 14 Dibanda was killed by the kidnappers in the bush yesterday shortly after the abduction,” open sources reported.

Photos of the remains of the deceased chief made rounds on social media Sunday evening. A thick crowd looked on as the corpse was deposited for preservation at the morgue of the Buea Regional Hospital Annex.

“Two traditional rulers of Buea subdivision kidnapped by separatist fighters yesterday in Mile 14 Buea have been released. The conditions under which Chief Efande Ewule of Lower Bokova Village and Simon Kombe of Lower Bolifamba were released is yet to be known. Unfortunately, His Majesty Ngale Ikome of Mile 14 died in captivity shortly after their abduction,” CRTV’s Albert Njie Mbonde reported. “Administrative authorities and security officials of the region have used this unfortunate incident to once again call on the population to collaborate, sincerely, to ensure that peace and social cohesion returns.”

On November 6, 2020, armed separatists killed His Royal Majesty Molinga Francis Nangoh, the traditional ruler of Liwuh La Malale village in Buea subdivision, Fako division of Cameroon’s Southwest region.

CRTV reported that Chief Molinga had just finished a crisis meeting with some members of his community around 7:00 pm when unidentified armed men stormed his palace and shot him in cold blood.

 “The palace was burnt down to ashes after the murder,” sources familiar with the incident said.

Chief Ngale Ikome’s death brings to three the number of traditional rulers in Buea subdivision to have died because of the worsening armed conflict in Cameroon’s North West and Southwest Regions.

In July 2018, armed separatists kidnapped eight Buea chiefs, including Chief William Njie Mbanda, the traditional ruler of Lysoka Moliwe Village in Buea Subdivision, who died on Friday, July 27, 2018, while in captivity.

Cameroon’s state forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tents in the North West and South West Regions since Anglophone protests transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.

Tit-for-tat killings, kidnappings, arsons, maiming, and outright terror have become part of daily lives in some parts of the English-speaking regions.