A gunman on rampage killed seven people and inflicted injured on two others across four villages in northeastern Cameroon, local media said on Thursday.
According to a statement made by Yves Bertrand Awounfac Alienou, the prefect of Vina department in the northern area of Adamawa, this “lone shooter, with an AK47-type weapon and four magazines loaded on both sides of his belt, opened fire on the innocent people” of four villages.
According to Awounfac Alienou, the attacks took place on Monday, leaving “seven persons dead and two critically injured,” a figure corroborated by local media in Cameroon.
Four of the victims died on the scene, while three others were brought to the hospital with injuries, and the shooter remains unidentified.
Security authorities are on the lookout for the gunman, according to Awounfac Alienou, who also urged the public to “mobilise massive in self-defence organisations to hunt him down.”
Adamawa, which borders the Central African Republic and Chad, has been the site of frequent kidnappings and ransom demands in the past.
The military has blamed criminal groups from both nations, as well as northern Cameroon, for the kidnappings, which are on the decline.
According to an evaluation by the Rapid Intervention Battalion, an elite army unit deployed in the region, an operation to prevent kidnappings was initiated more than two years ago, and 46 hostages were released between 2018 and 2020.