Camrail Condemned For “Manslaughter, Accidental Injuries and Dangerous Activities”, On Eséka Rail Accident

Yesterday September 26, the Court of First Instance of Eséka (Cameroon’s central region) issued a verdict condemning Camrail, the national rail carrier, of “manslaughter, accidental injuries and dangerous activities”, over the case of a tragic accident. 

(Business in Cameroon) - Back on 21 October 2016, the town was the scene of a deadly rail accident which killed 79 persons and injured 600 others.

However, this local subsidiary of Bolloré group “rejected” the court's decision denouncing “the absence of any qualified and competent expertise which should help identify, in an objective way, the true causes of this tragic accident, and definitively limit them in order to make the Cameroonian railway more secure”.

Camrail Condemned For “Manslaughter, Accidental Injuries and Dangerous Activities”, On Eséka Rail Accident

“Camrail expresses, along with its 1,600 employees, its total misunderstanding in the face of a decision clearly based solely on the assessment of a few former non-specialist employees, non-sworn but declared experts, and also in legal proceedings for personal reasons against Camrail, since 10 years”, Bolloré said in a statement.

Let’s recall that, during a correctional hearing last March 14, Jean Pierre Morel, who was then Director General of Camrail, revealed that in the aftermath of the Eséka disaster, the company had set up a commission of inquiry to identify the causes. 

According to him, the experts committed to this task concluded that the overspeed of the train, from some point along the route, was the cause of this accident, without being able to explain the reasons why the train suddenly took an abnormal speed. In need of in-depth assessment, Jean Pierre Morel had suggested an “independent international expertise”.

On 23 March 2017, the government issued a statement on the results of investigation conducted by the national committee of injury set for this purpose. “The investigation report concluded that the main cause of the overturning of the train was an excessive speed of 96 km per hour in a section of track where the speed is severely limited to 40 km/h,” the document said. 

Experts observed “an overloading, inappropriate extension of the train, use of passenger coaches several of which had failed braking devices, use of a power unit whose braking was out of service, lack of serious verification of the continuity of the train's braking before leaving Yaoundé, refusal by the Camrail hierarchy to take into consideration the suggestions expressed by the train driver due to the above-mentioned anomalies”.

For now, Camrail gives no detail on whether it will appeal this court decision which, the company said “does not provide a clear explanation of the real causes of the derailment of train 152”. It may be awaiting the court to specify the sanctions resulting from the verdict.

Brice R. Mbodiam

Published on September 27, 2018 - View More