At least two soldiers have been killed and five others injured in Mbengwi, headquarters of Momo Division in the North West Region of Cameroon.

On Friday June 29, in Tugi, 20 kilometres from Mbengwi, two soldiers a van transporting security forces came under attack from armed men along the way leading to a prolonged shootout between both forces.

In the process the driver of the van, a gendarme officer Kounou Messanga was killed while five others were injured; Obama Innocent and Kwa Lawrence, soldiers of the Koutaba military base, Banwe Levis, Souleymanou Djaouro and Tataw Victor, all student gendarmes.

The separatists made away with two AK47 rifles and amunition after burning down the van which was transporting the security forces.

On the other hand, security sources say six separatist fighters were killed after a contingent of soldiers arrived as backup on the scene before transporting the five injured soldiers to a medical facility in Bamenda.

In another separate scene in Mbengwi on Sunday morning, a military officer was killed in an ambush by separatist fighters before seizing his weapon and disappearing into the bushes.

These incidents come to increase the number of casualties suffered by Cameroon’s defence and Security forces in the fight against separatists in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

Last week, Cameroon’s minister of defence Joseph Beti Assomo in an address to parliament said the death toll of Cameroon’s security forces in the war was mounting and read out the names of over 120 forces killed in the war.

His outing cames just days after the Government of Cameroon through the Prime Minister Philemon Yang revealed in a document that 84 members of the country’s security and defence forces had died in the war against separatists while over 64.000 persons have been internally displaced.

Figures far lower than the estimates of the UN which puts the nember of internally displaced persons at over 161.000 and have called for urgent need to solve the humanitarian crisis that is brewing.

The Government of Cameroon last week launched an Emergency Humanitarian Assistance plan to raise 12.7 billion FCFA which will be used to assist the internally displaced persons.