Border demarcation: Bandits attack, kill five in Adamawa

The Adamawa State Commissioner for Justice, Silas Sanga, confirmed that five people were killed at Southern part of Adamawa State.

The deceased were alleged to have been killed by gunmen in Komcha village of the Republic of Cameroon.

The deceased have also been identified as officials of the International Boundary Committee set up by the United Nations.  It was further gathered that so far, the identities of some of the victims of the attack have been confirmed.

The foreigners are from Kenya and Cameroon, while the Nigerians hail from Adamawa, Jigawa and Kano States.

According to Sanga, the officials were on a delineation mission of the border towns between Nigeria and Cameroon. Komcha, which shares border with Nigeria in Toungo, the Southern part of Adamawa State, has a thick forest in between the two communities.

The officials were said to be on a mission to demarcate the boundaries between Nigeria and Cameroon following the International Court of Justice's verdict during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s era, which ceded Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon.

It was gathered that while the officials were carrying out their duties, armed men swooped on at Komcha Village in the republic of Cameroon.

Addressing journalists at the Government House in Yola, Adamawa State yesterday, Sanga, said: “The remains of the officials have been conveyed to the state, preparatory to transporting them to their states and countries of origin.”

The commissioner, however, did not give the identities of the members of the committee that were involved in the attack.

According reports, the officials were in the area to study the boundary issue between Nigeria and Cameroon.

One other report had it that the victims were attacked by Cameroonian gendarmes.

Already, a delegation of the Adamawa State Government, headed by the Deputy Governor, Martins Babale, is putting finishing touches on how to send the remains of the victims to their respective places of origin.

The delegation, which includes the Adamawa State Commissioner for Land and Survey, Alhaji Ibrahim Mijinyawa, and some top officials of the ministry, has mobilized at the Federal Medical Centre, Yola to receive the corpses of the victims.