Cameroon's government said on Tuesday that a group of soldiers killed nine villagers, including an 18-month-old girl, in a "manifestly disproportionate" and "hasty" response to a confrontation in the Northwest region last week.
The four soldiers were searching for a missing comrade in the village of Missong when they came across a group of angry villagers at night, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
"In an inappropriate reaction, unsuited to the circumstances and manifestly disproportionate to the hostile villagers' refusal to cooperate ... the soldiers, in a hasty reaction of self-protection ... used their weapons," the statement said.
