Yaounde - A Cameroonian presidential helicopter was shot down in Chad last month, with at least four people aboard, the Cameroonian press reported on Monday, citing unnamed military sources.
"It's sure that the aircraft was shot down and the first findings in an investigation suggest that it was a deliberate attack," the independent paper Le Messager reported.
The US-made Bell helicopter, flown by Major Desire Awao Mbang and Flight Engineer Emma Abate, was downed on October 18, the day presidents Paul Biya of Cameroon and Idriss Deby of Chad inaugurated an ambitious oil pipeline project at Kobe in southern Chad.
Two other independent papers, Mutations and La Nouvelle Expression, said that radio contact with Major Mbang was lost five minutes after the helicopter took off from Kobe and the Garoua base, in Cameroon, also lost contact.
A search launched by the Cameroon and Chad authorities, with help from French troops based in Chad, found nothing after several days, the newspapers reported.
According to Mutations, the helicopter wreck was finally found with four rotting bodies inside.
The Cameroon press has suggested the incident was either a failed assassination attempt on the country's president or an attack by angry guerrillas in southern Chad aiming to disrupt the pipeline project.
Authorities in both Chad and Cameroon were not available on Monday afternoon to comment on the reports. - Sapa-AFP