Kumba in Flames?!

These riots in Kumba that resulted in numerous building being burned and students being teargassed and shot (with one dying) began the day we left Kumba, 2 weeks ago. If you read my previous post about when we were in Kumba, you'll recall that it was a very frustrating day for us. We basically spent an entire day trying to get up to this lake, and ended up getting shuttled around for the entire day, trying to get permission to see the lake and paying a lot of money.

After our attempts were frustrated, we decided to give up on Kumba and left the next morning, on Wed the 7th. It's a good thing that we did, because later that day students began protesting too-frequent power outages (which we experienced). They started protesting on Wed, some were arrested but the protest was successful because they repaired the power problem. However, when the police did not release the arrested students, students rioted again on Friday, burning down a police station and a couple of other govt. buildings. Police fired teargas at the students, and when they ran out of teargas they started firing into the crowd. One student died and several others were seriously injured.

I guess it's a good thing we followed our instincts and left Kumba. I think our mother's prayers are working.

We didn't find all of this out until a week later, when we found this newspaper in the train station in N'gaoundere the following Friday. Needless to say, our mothers weren't as thrilled with the news as we were...