The Tumasang brothers had gone missing for a week inside a collapsed mining pit.

It took the Bamenda Army Rescue Unit, bulldozers and the population seven days of ceaseless digging to uncover the bodies of Edwin and Cletus Tumasang. They went missing on July 2, 2013, while digging for gold in the neighbourhood of Njong, Santa, in Mezam Division in the North West Region. The two brothers, whose corpses were uncovered on July 8, 2015, were later buried separately with unanswered questions as to why their search for wealth turned awry.

Prior to the discovery, the people had already dug two graves and bought two coffins for the awaited corpses. It would be recalled that the two brothers were buried inside a 20-metre mining pit that had been dug for over a year and a half in search of gold. It is said that Edwin Che Tumasang, 37, initially dug two pits without succeeding in finding the expected mineral. The third pit raised hopes when barely two metres deep, he reportedly discovered some glittering stones that looked like silver. Excited at the discovery, Edwin asked for the assistance of more people in the digging exercise.

He also invited his older brother, 39-year-old Cletus Akuma Tumasang, from Douala to rush home and discover the gift or wealth from their ancestral land. On arrival in Njong, Cletus went straight to the extraction site where he found Edwin down the pit with the help of an electric lift and a standby water pump to help drain the quantity of water emerging underneath. While inside, the walls of the pit caved in, burying the two brothers. Edwin and Cletus Tumasang were granted temporary permits to prospect for gold in 2014.