Caneroon’s top military officer, who was killed by Boko Haram on Sunday, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel on January 1 this year, before his vehicle stepped on a deadly explosive device yesterday that sent him to his early grave, friends said on Facebook on Monday.

At 39 years old, Lieutenant Colonel Honoré Georgie Kwene Ebele was married and had six children, they added, and was in a security vehicle along with 11 other soldiers when they stepped on a mine buried by Boko Haram along Goshe – Cameroon – Kerawa axis, an area between Nigeria and Cameroon.

He had just met with his Nigerian counterparts in Goshe, Nigeria, after patrolling the ravaged town still under Boko Haram threats, taking a picture, perhaps, to keep as souvenir, not knowing it would be his last.

After the meeting in Goshe, Nigeria, lieutenant colonel Kwene and his comrades began their way back into Cameroon. But he did not make it. A buried landmine was waiting for them. It hit the car they were travelling on, injuring them badly. He died in the hospital afterwards. The rest are still in the hospital.

Friends remember him as a gallant soldier who fought Boko Haram tooth and nail, especially during the fierce battle of Amchide in October 2014 when the terrorists used an armoured personnel carrier for the first time.

Mr. Eric Benjamin Lamere, who said he knew him personally, narrated on Facebook how Lieutenant Colonel Kwene, then a junior officer, successfully turned the battle against Boko Haram in Amchide, escaping by the whiskers, but not without dealing a blow to the terrorists who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in March last year and have since modelled their barbarism after the Middle East killers.

“He accompanied me during my trips to the war front,” Mr. Lamere recalled, “his smile, simplicity, and his humility were striking traits of his character. He is leaving a widow and six children. Rest in peace my Colonel.”

His death comes only days after Captain Yari Emmanuel, another senior Cameroonian officer, was gunned down by Boko Haram in the same region following deadly confrontations.

The fight against Boko Haram is turning into a guerrilla war with the terrorists planting explosive devices around the Sambisa forest where they are based and from where they launch attacks into Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger.

Boko Haram has stepped up attacks against those four countries in recent weeks, killing hundreds of people, burning women and children alive and sending many away from their homes even as the Nigerian government claimed that the terrorists have been decimated.