They were handed over on August 7, 2015, in Yaounde, to heads of railway stations by the Minister of Transport.

The Minister of Transport, Robert Nkili, accompanied by the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence, Jean Baptiste Bokam, have handed security equipment to the subsidiary of the Bolloré Group, Cameroon Railway, Camrail, owing to the spate of terrorist attacks. The ceremony at the Yaounde office of Camrail brought to the table government and the Board Chair of Camrail, Hon. Hamadou Sali, the Regional Director of Bolloré Africa Logistics, Mohamed Diop and the Director of Camrail, Quentin Gerard, in an in-camera discussion that saw the latter debrief the former on tightened security measures already put in place since February 2015 to preempt any form of terrorists attacks.

The over 20 metal detectors handed to Camrail on Friday are only part of equipment intended to reinforce security in railway stations. The equipment are expected to be distributed to all Camrail stations wherein they will be used for searches in train stations and trains, it was revealed. “We received only a part, and more will be coming by next week,” the General Manager of Camrail, Quentin Gerard, told the press, saying over 80 were awaited.

He however revealed that the country stepped up security since the upsurge of insecurity in Cameroon. Passengers have since February this year been submitted to obligatory identification during ticket purchase. Identity cards are now mandatory for each passenger before the issuance of any ticket, after which the passenger’s identity is systematically saved and archived on a special document.  The company is also reported to have considerably reinforced its security staff with over 550 of them already spread on the company’s network and working to monitor passengers. Vigilante groups have also been solicited as the population throws its weight behind government in the thorny battle against terrorism.