A six-month old pregnant woman died on the spot, while the other victim sustained a serious head injury.

What used to be a mall in the Bonapriso neighbourhood was on Friday night turned into a desolate site. A pair of rubber slippers, broken bottles, grains of starched groundnuts, a broken table, a pool of blood…was the image created after a car accident. After missing her usual rendez-vous for two days due to the death of a relation, 27-year-old Wale Martine returned to her daily occupational spot that day, not knowing she would not return back home. It was about 8:30 pm, according to eye witnesses, that a gray private car, driven by a 16-year-old boy, stormed her business ground, unannounced. Before hitting the locally based starched groundnut seller, the vehicle knocked down a passerby, who was waiting to board a commercial motorbike. The collision projected the woman a few metres away, resulting to a deep wound on her forehead and left her unconscious. Meanwhile, the other victim, Wale Martine, resident in Ngangue, who was six-month old pregnant, did not share in her luck. She died on the spot, following the head-on collision that smashed and pressed her against a nearby billboard’s iron pole. Married and a mother of four, the prompt intervention of the Police could only recover fragments of what used to be a vibrant woman. Her corpse was immediately rushed to the New Bell Mortuary, while the other victim was at the emergency unit of the same hospital for treatment.

According to police sources at the Douala 1Central Police Station, the vehicle had four youngsters on board, who according to the owner (the driver’s mother) took the vehicle without her consent. An angry mob had gathered to lynch them, but for the timely intervention of some benevolent individuals. The driver and his friends were uninjured thanks to the car’s anti-shock air bag, while the bonnet was twisted by the iron pole. At press time, the vehicle’s owner and other family members were helping with investigations, while the youngsters were still at large.

Dust had barely settled on this fatal accident when about an hour later, another occurred about one hundred metres away. It was a collision between an on-coming black Mercedes and a stationery black Mitsubishi vehicle. Though no human loss was recorded, a nearby brick wall suffered the wrath. The accident was blamed on high speeding influenced by alcohol on the part of the Mercedes driver.