Fr Toussaint Zoumalde, Superior of the Capuchins in Chad and the Central African Republic, died a few days ago after being stabbed at Ngaoundere in the Francophone part of neighbouring Cameroon. He was travelling from Bouar in the Central African Republic where he had conducted a training course, back to his community in Chad.

Fr Zoumalde, who was originally from Bouar, spent the night of 19 March in diocesan premises and was found in a pool of blood nearby the next day. It is suspected that Fr Zoumalde was killed by an anti-government rebel group but it is hard to pin responsibility for such incidents.

Fr. Toussaint (born in 1971) had worked extensively as a journalist for Radio Siriri, of the diocese of Bouar, and composed several religious songs.

In the last two days a number of incidents took place in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon: a football coach was kidnapped and released in Bamenda, a former government minister was kidnapped nearby, a football team of 15 was kidnapped at Buea University and 80 people travelling by bus from Buea to Kumba were detained in their bus from 9 am to 5 pm. These are assumed to be actions by separatists.

The news has thrown into despair all the religious communities of Central Africa and all the people who have known him. Internally, in Cameroon, there are tensions over the two mainly English-speaking south-western provinces. A secessionist movement emerged in the 1990s, and turned into an insurgency in 2016.

Source: Independent Catholic News

Catholic leaders in the English-speaking parts of Cameroon have called on all parties to respect human life, as the ongoing Anglophone crisis continues to wreck the region.

In a lengthy Lenten message, the Archbishop of the Bamenda, Cornelius Fontem Esua, and his auxiliary, Bishop Michael Miabesue Bibi said all life is sacred, even in times of conflict.

About 80 percent of Cameroon is French-speaking. However, the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon are majority English-speaking, a legacy of the colonial history of the country: Cameroon was originally German, but after World War I the defeated country transferred it to the Allies, and it was divided between France and Britain.

At independence, the two parts were reunited, and currently about 20 percent of the country’s nearly 25 million people is Anglophone. The Catholic Church is the largest religious group in the country, representing about 40 percent of all Cameroonians.

In October 2016, strikes by lawyers and teachers over perceived attempts by the Francophone administration to assimilate the legal and educational systems practiced in the two English-speaking regions turned violent, and morphed into rising demands by Anglophone Cameroonians for independence.

The government has been accused of razing entire villages and extrajudicial killings in their hunt for separatists, who are calling on the English-speaking areas to form a new country, called ‘Ambazonia.’

The United Nations estimates nearly 500,000 refugees and internally displaced persons have fled their homes in the region due to the conflict.

“Since the beginning of the crisis of the Anglophone Problem which escalated on November 21, 2016, there has been increasing and rampant profanation and disrespect of human life and the dignity of the human person,” the bishops wrote.

“This has taken unimaginable and alarming proportions. Violence has become common place because of the frequent confrontations between the military and the secessionists. Nearly every day we hear gunshots which are now jokingly referred to as ‘popcorn’ from various corners of our towns and villages. There is indiscriminate killing of innocent people with impunity. It seems that human life has lost its value and sacredness and the dignity of the human being is rubbed in mud,” the statement continued.

The prelates said they couldn’t understand why hospitals and health facilities are “vandalized,” and condemned the continued violation of human rights “with impunity in such a way that some wounded persons are denied medical care and are taken away from hospitals and health centers for summary extra judicial execution.”

They blasted the protagonists in the conflict for engaging in “cold-blooded killings,” and for celebrating such violence.

“In fact, people are quick to kill those they suspect or consider as their enemies. The breaking into houses, the burning of houses, leaving hundreds of people homeless, and the looting and burning of property no longer make news. Some men and women, students and teachers, parents and children, religious men and women are not only molested but kidnapped for ransom. Life seems to be valueless and meaningless,“ the bishops said.

They also expressed concern about the “frightening disrespect for the dead.”

“The corpses of some of those who have been killed are thrown into streams and rivers or dumped near others’ compounds to make them suspects. Some of those killed are burnt to ashes. We have seen dead bodies with heads, legs or other parts of their bodies chopped off. It has now become normal to hear an announcement over radio that there are unidentified corpses in the Bamenda Regional Hospital Mortuary. It is now not unusual to see fresh or decomposing dead bodies on the public highway. A lot of disrespectful things have been and are being done on dead bodies. Many people have been prevented from taking and burying their loved ones. All this is against the sacredness and dignity of the human person. This is unheard of in our African tradition where the dead are venerated,” wrote the bishops.

The way forward

Esua and Bibi said only an inclusive dialogue can put an end to the mayhem in the country’s English-speaking regions. For that to happen there is need for the parties to “put down their arms, stop this senseless fratricidal and suicidal war and have the courage to enter into dialogue with one another.”

They blasted the government’s approach to resolving the crisis, noting that “violence and the approach of ‘neutralizing’ the secessionists is not the right solution because violence only begets violence.”

The two prelates appealed “to the competent authorities that the military should desist from the wanton killing of innocent civilians and the burning down of houses which is the basic cause of the displacement of the populations.”

They pleaded that “there may be no more delay in addressing effectively the real causes of the present crisis.”

The bishops called on the separatists and “other armed groups which are exploiting the situation to refrain from the use of violence and stop shedding the blood of their brothers and sisters which like the blood of Abel is crying out to God from the ground.”

Esua and Bibi also expressed concern about the fact that children are being deprived of their fundamental right: The right to education.

The separatists have called for a boycott of all schools in the region and enforced it with violence.

Emphasizing the importance of education as “the indispensable instrument of the liberation and development of the human person,” the bishops insisted that the best way of preparing a better future cannot be by “stopping our children from going to school.”

Source: Crux

An ambulance dispatched by a Catholic Church-run hospital in Cameroon continued saving lives this month amid fresh outbreaks of violence between the military and armed groups.

Elengu Noella, 27, told voanews.com that the vehicle whisked her and four other women to safety during a firefight between security personnel and separatists but two of her three children were killed in the heavy fighting near the town of Buea.

Cameroon said this week it is mobilizing troops along its northern border with Nigeria as Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State in West Africa, step up their attacks.

In January alone, the military has recorded five incursions by insurgents near the border and in the Lake Chad basin, with three people killed last week, the media reports.

Meanwhile, Cameroon, which is also fighting separatists in its English-speaking western regions, is believed to have sent thousands of refugees back to Nigeria.

Filippo Grande, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, has repeatedly urged the Cameroon government in the capital Yaounde to “refrain from further forced returns and to ensure protection to those fleeing insecurity and persecution in Nigeria.”

The situation worsened in Nigeria in 2018, capped by a brutal massacre in November when a Boko Haram strike on a military base killed up to 100 soldiers.

Now Cameroon seems bent on sealing off the border as the terrorist group continues to recruit fighters from within its territory.

Defense Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Rene Claude Meka has vowed to fight fire with fire, saying this year will see Cameroon fight for national unity and territorial integrity.

“2019 will not be a bed of roses,” Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo said on Jan. 21.

“We shall continue with various operations in the far north, northwest and southwest regions, and reactivate special operations in the Adamawa region where criminal groups specialized in kidnapping are wreaking havoc.”

Source: La Croix International

Cameroonian Christians are crying out against the ongoing violence in their country, where churches are being converted into military barracks and believers are forced to flee. “We need peace and the United Nations intervention,” a Methodist Christian, whose identity wasn’t revealed, told Protestant Digital.

“Many people die every day, homes and villages are burned, there are famished people and also those who take refuge in Nigeria. We do not have a voice in our country.”

The violence in question stems from protests in the English-speaking region of the country, where some militant groups have created the self-proclaimed Republic of Ambazonia in opposition to what they say is oppression from the French-speaking side of the country.

Hundreds of people have been killed this year, while tens of thousands have been forced to flee as refugees. Some 50 primary and secondary schools and Christian hospitals have been affected, while at least four churches have been converted into military barracks.

“The government of Ambazonia, which controls most of the Northwest and Southwest, has placed a group of soldiers in the school until the crisis is resolved,” the Methodist Christian said. “There are often shootings between different forces, and a stray bullet can kill a minor.”

Kidnappings have also been rife. Seventy-nine children were taken by gunmen from a Presbyterian Church school but were returned earlier in November.

“They look tired and psychologically tortured,” said Fonki Samuel Forba, moderator of the country’s Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian school said that it will close due to concerns over safety.

“It is unfortunate we have to close the school and send home 700 children,” Forba said. “Their security is not assured by the state and armed groups constantly attack and kidnap them.”

American missionary Charles Wesco was killed late in October when he was caught in “crossfire” between the Cameroon army and English-speaking separatist forces, the U.S. government said.

Wesco had only moved to Cameroon with his family, which includes eight children, earlier in October after selling most of his possessions in the U.S., in order to serve as missionaries with the Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana.

In October, on the occasion of a community bank holiday, Forba declared in a statement: “Given what the English-speaking community is going through at this time, we cannot have a celebration while many of God’s children are being killed, suffering or living as internal or external refugees.

“The emphasis should be placed on supplying the Working Fund for the Mission, to allow the church to continue assisting our pastors and brothers displaced by the armed conflict that has brought pain and suffering to many.”

Source: The Christian Post

Christian Cardinal Tumi has paid homage to the Kenyan Priest shot and killed by Cameroon government troops in Kembong in the Manyu County. The Cardinal performed the Roman Catholic ritual on the remains of late Father Cosmas Ondari before the corpse was flown to Kenya.

Father Cosmas Omboto Ondari, a Mill Hill missionary, was “brutally and recklessly murdered” at the Kembong church where he was serving as the parochial vicar of the St Martin of Tours Parish, the Bishop of Mamfe, Andrew Nkea, said in a statement.

“He was killed by government soldiers, who were shooting at random from their passing vehicle,” Bishop Nkea said, citing eyewitness accounts. “I visited Kembong Parish on Thursday, November 22 and personally counted 21 bullet holes on the church building… the blood of the murdered priest was still clearly seen on the cemented entrance, just at the door,” the prelate recounted.

Bishop Nkea called for thorough investigations into the heinous crime committed against an innocent and peace loving missionary, adding that the culprits be brought to justice. The Biya Francophone regime claimed Ambazonia Restoration Forces killed the priest on the instructions of a Southern Cameroons activist, Eric Tataw.

By Rita Akana

Three Claretians (Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) have been kidnapped in the Anglophone region in southwest Cameroon. They are: Fr Jude Thaddeus Langeh Basebang, Fr Placide Muntong and a student from the same religious congregation.

The three were kidnapped on Saturday, 24 November, by armed men on the road to Muyenge, where they were going on a mission of evangelization and assistance at the local parish.

So far there is no further information on the identity of the kidnappers.

Several religious have been victims of the violence in Cameroon. On November 21, Fr Cosmas Omboto Ondari, a Kenyan missionary from the Missionary Society of St Joseph of Mill Hill, was shot dead in Kembong, a few kilometres from Memfe, the provincial capital of the South-Eastern Province.

Source: Fides