Remains of drowned soldiers conveyed to Douala for an autopsy

The remains of the two young Cameroonian soldiers who went missing at sea along the coast of Limbe were recovered on October 22 and have been ferried to a Douala hospital for post-mortem examination.

Army Sergeant, Pascal Yumeni, and colleague, Corporal Wiriwu Lobek, are reported to have battled in vain to save their lives when a flying boat that they had taken to sea in the wee hours of October 19, overturned.

They are said to have been in the company of a retired gendarme officer and a Beniniose, at sea around 3:00 am for a maritime surveillance mission. Their boat, The Post gathered, came face-to-face with a suspect smugglers’ boat, supposedly from Nigeria.

A confrontation is said to have ensued. The alleged smugglers, who ended up escaping, allegedly rammed their boat against the flying boat, hauling all the soldiers into the sea. The two soldiers, the retired gendarme officer and the Beniniose began the ferocious task of swimming in the depth of the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of Mabeta at Limbe III.

While the retired gendarme officer swam ashore, the two soldiers couldn't make it.

The Post gathered that a post mortem will be conducted on their bodies to ascertain if they really died by drowning as the survivors claimed, or otherwise. “We are told there was a scuffle with the smugglers,” a security official told The Post.

In the meantime, the military shall begin investigating the two survivors, ; the retired gendarme and the Beniniose to confirm the news they have gathered already.