Separatists in Cameroon have abducted five hospital staffers in the western town of Kumbo. The rebels say they were retaliating after Cameroon’s military entered the hospital and arrested or killed some of their fighters. Hospital workers tell VOA both military troops and rebels abused them.

Cameroon’s Bui Unity Warriors separatists say they abducted five health workers from Banso Baptist Hospital, BBH, Sunday. Bui is an administrative unit in Cameroon’s English speaking Northwest region.

In videos circulating on social media, including WhatsApp and Facebook, the separatists say hospital workers were abducted in retaliation after the military entered the hospital, killing one fighter and arresting three other fighters.

The fighters were hospital patients who had been wounded in battles with the military last week.

In another video circulating online, fighters claiming to be members of the Bui Unity Warriors present a man they say collaborated with government troops, who attacked fighters inside BBH.

The Roman Catholic Church in Cameroon identifies the man as Shiyntum Sergius, a priest at the parish in Vekovi, an English-speaking village in Bui, who had also been abducted.

The Roman Catholic Church in Cameroon, The Cameroon Baptist Convention that owns BBH, and the Presbyterian Church all confirm that troops attacked BBH, killed a fighter and arrested three other fighters. The churches say in retaliation, armed separatists abducted five medical staff members from the hospital and the priest, who is accused of collaborating with the rebels.

Joseph Sahfe is a patient who says other patients are scared that the hospital may stop rendering services to the sick. He spoke via the messaging app WhatsApp from the town of Kumbo, where BBH is located.

“What will become of the patients who depend on this lone institution for survival? To the best of my knowledge, a hospital treats patients without inquiring who you are,” said Sahfe. “It is a neutral ground in the midst of a crisis like the one we are experiencing. Where will the patients go if she [Baptist Hospital] has to close her doors as Doctors Without Borders did?”

In a release Monday, the hospital dismissed rumors that disgruntled staff are planning to stop working. The hospital management said it will continue saving lives despite the challenges.

The military says its troops organized raids on separatist camps in Bui last week and killed at least 7 fighters, including two self-proclaimed generals. The military said troops were searching for wounded fighters hiding in the community but did not comment on if government troops invaded the hospital.

Nick Ngwanyam is a member of the Cameroon medical council, an association of Cameroon medical doctors. Ngwanyam says it is unfortunate that both government troops and rebels are invading hospitals, which are out to save lives and reduce suffering.

“We are pushing those institutions to shut down because hospital staff [workers] feel unsafe working under those conditions and therefore, we are putting the lives of the communities in danger and peril, and we are doing ourselves a lot of harm,” said Ngwanyam. “It doesn’t matter what the reasons are, be it by the military or the boys who are fighting, we are hurting ourselves, we are shooting ourselves in the foot and the government needs to take its responsibility and stop this war [crisis].”

The Banso Baptist Hospital says it receives several hundred patients each day. Most are victims of the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions.

Cameroonian authorities have always accused aid groups of helping separatists in the country’s English-speaking western regions, a charge the hospital has strongly denied, saying its mission is only to save lives.

In August 2021, the international aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, announced that it had withdrawn emergency health care services amid the separatist crisis. The military accused MSF of, among other charges, aiding separatist fighters in the medical aid group’s hospitals.

MSF denied the accusation and said its only goal is to save lives irrespective of whose life it is.

By Miriam Metchane Ewang

Wearing a large hat protecting her face from the sun’s rays in Cameroon, 63-year-old Jeanne now bitterly regrets using skin whitening products after being diagnosed with skin cancer.

She is one of many women in Cameroon who use the controversial products that have been banned after social media outrage.

“I am embarrassed when people look at me,” the trader in the capital of Yaounde said, wishing to only use her first name.

After a lesion grew on her face over five months, she went to a doctor who diagnosed her with one of the most common skin cancers.

Doctors told her the cancer is linked to her use of skin lightening products for 40 years.

Jeanne, like millions worldwide, used the products for more “desirable” lighter skin, an ideal pushed by the beauty industry.

According to the Cameroon Dermatology Society (Socaderm), nearly 30 percent of residents in the economic capital Douala and a quarter of schoolgirls used the products in 2019.

For some like 20-year-old student Annette, the effects can be harsh. She said she suffers from red patches on her face, peeling skin and also burns.

“Under a strong sun, my face became hot and I had to stop,” she said.

The products with names like “White now” and “Super white”, are instantly recognisable on shop shelves by the fair-skinned women on the packaging.

Dangerous chemicals

The furore began in the summer after social media users criticised opposition MP Nourane Fotsing over her company that sells the products, angry that an elected official would profit from them.

Many of the products have never been scientifically tested and contain dangerous levels of chemicals that inhibit the production of melanin, a substance produced in the body by exposure to the sun.

One of the chemicals is hydroquinone, banned in the European Union since 2001 because of the risk of cancer and genetic mutations.

Cameroon’s health ministry on August 19 banned the import, production and distribution of cosmetic and personal hygiene products containing dangerous substances such as hydroquinone and mercury.

Hydroquinone is in fact one of the most used in whitening products in Cameroon, according to a 2019 study by Yaounde I University.

‘Public health problem’

“We encounter patients complaining of symptoms linked to skin depigmentation every day,” Alain Patrice Meledie Ndjong, a dermatologist at a hospital in Douala, said.

It is a “public health problem”.

According to the World Health Organization, the products are commonly used in many African, Asian and Caribbean countries by both women and men, and also among dark-skinned populations in Europe and North America.

Other skin whitening products include potions, tablets and even injections.

Some of the substances, when ingested, can cause diabetes, obesity, hypertension or kidney or liver failure, warned Ndjong, adding there was also a psychological impact on individuals like “anxiety and depression”.

Despite the horror stories, men and women believe they will become more beautiful after using the products.

“Beauty standards promoted by media, advertising and marketing reinforce the bias that lighter skin tone is more desirable than darker skin tone.”

Sociologist Achille Pinghane Yonta of Yaounde University offers blunter analysis of why the creams remain popular.

“There is a desire” rooted “in our consciences to want to look like” Western populations, he said.

“It’s a very old practice. It’s even said, in some parts of the country, that a light-skinned woman’s dowry is higher than that of a darker woman.”

But for Pascaline Mbida, she felt the difference.

“I noticed that men were more attracted to women with lighter skin and I had confirmation of this when I whitened my skin, I had never got so much attention,” Mbida said.

Black market

But the cost put off Mbida, who is currently unemployed. She spent 30,000 Central African Francs (45 euros) per month on the products.

The mandatory monthly minimum wage in Cameroon is 36,270 (55 euros).

Since the ban, police have launched raids, much to the chagrin of the sector’s players who claim some seizures don’t distinguish between the products that are banned by the government and those that are not.

The WHO in 2019 said “the skin lightening industry is one of the fastest growing” worldwide and was estimated to be worth $31.2 billion by 2024.

The cosmetic and personal hygiene market grew in Cameroon by seven percent in 2020 and was worth 380 billion CFA (around 580 million euros).

Despite the ban, there is a already a black market for the products.

Source: AFP