After more than six years of war pitting his country’s English-speaking minority against its French-speaking majority, Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda in Cameroon says the Anglophones are weary of the conflict.

“Our people are tired of the war, and our people need peace,” Nkea said January 14.

“In the northwest and southwest regions of our country, we have seen Cameroonians exhibit wickedness against fellow Cameroonians: Homes burned, schools shut down, the destruction of goods and obstruction of the circulation of people and goods…we have seen Cameroonians torture other Cameroonians,” he said.

Nkea was speaking in the St. Anne and Joachim Cathedral in Abang, Ebolowa, in Cameroon’s southern region, during a closing Mass of the 46th annual seminar of Cameroon Catholic Bishops.

In the presence of some thirty bishops from all five ecclesiastical provinces in Cameroon, as well as representatives of bishops from neighboring Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with several government Ministers, Nkea spoke at length about the conflict that has so far left at least 6,000 people dead.

Over a million others have been forced to flee from their homes, and more than 70,000 others have sought refuge in Nigeria, according to the International Crisis Group.

Conflict erupted in 2016 when English-speaking teachers and lawyers took to the streets to protest, amid perceptions that the educational and legal systems in the two Anglophone regions were being overwhelmed by French-speakers with scant knowledge of local realities.

The government took a hard line, and what was initially a peaceful protest mutated into a political crisis. A separatist movement developed and took up arms demanding independence for Cameroon’s English speakers, and the formation of a new state to be called “Ambazonia.”

According to many analysts, the current conflict is a consequence of Cameroon’s colonial legacy. Initially colonized by Germany following the Berlin Conference of 1884, the country would be divided between Britain and France following World War 1.

France claimed four-fifths of the country in the post-war settlement, while Britain was given one-fifth which it administered as part of Nigeria. The two colonial powers would administer the two parts of the country, first as a League of Nations Mandate and then as an United Nations Trust Territory.

In 1960, the French part of Cameroon got its independence to become “La Republique du Cameroun.” The English-speaking part of Cameroon, otherwise known as the British Cameroons, got theirs in 1961, but both sides decided to reunite following a February 11, 1961, plebiscite.

The political elites of the two territories agreed on the formation of a federal State, with considerable autonomy for the English-speaking regions.

In 1972, however, then-President Ahmadou Ahidjo organized a controversial referendum, dissolving the federal structure of the state and replacing it with a united republic. In 1984, President Paul Biya removed the word “united” from the name of the state and Cameroon became known simply as “The Republic of Cameroon,” the name the French-speaking part of the country had adopted at independence.

Cameroon’s English-speakers saw this as an act of assimilation, and the 2016 uprising was therefore the culmination of decades of pent-up frustrations.

While the country’s Catholic bishops, especially from Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, have long called for a revision of what they see as these historical injustices, Nkea believes that everything should be done for peace to return.

“We are inspired by what we have seen in the last six years in some regions of our country,” Nkea said.

“One of the greatest negative effects of war among us is that we lose the fear of the Lord and respect for authority,” the cleric said. He said once people don’t have the fear of the Most High in them, “it is difficult to live in peace.”

The archbishop said the country’s bishops will never rest until hostilities are brought to an end.

“As we leave Ebolowa, we are determined, as individuals and as a conference, to continue working for peace, reconciliation and justice, convinced that these will bring sustainable harmony to our country.”

He then warned against efforts at political manipulation of the church.

“The Catholic Church isn’t a political party where anyone can militate according to its political manifesto,” the cleric said.

“The Catholic Church is the mystical body of Christ,” he noted and explained that both clergy and laity “must make Christ present in our world and in different societies.”

It is only when Christ is present in the different communities and in each individual, the archbishop argued, that there can be peace in the world.

“We have prayed for peace in our entire country, hoping that all the problems we are having will be resolved, and our people will once again live in peace.”

Source: Crux

Members of the Cameroon Catholic Bishops’ Conference known also as the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) are gathering in-person in Ebolowa for their 2023 General Meeting.

Topics being discussed by the Bishops’ Conference include the difficulties of sharing the Gospel in the modern world within the framework of the apostolic constitution; the work of the Bishops’, praying for peace and making sure that the cry of the poor is heard.

The 2023 National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) an annual seminar of the Bishops of Cameroon started on Saturday 7, 2023 and will end on Saturday 14, 2023.

By Rita Akana

As the pope’s ambassador to Cameroon moves on, leaving behind a country still torn apart by ethnic and linguistic divides despite his best efforts at peace, his final plea to the country was to embrace a spirit of “dialogue without prejudice.”

Archbishop Julio Murat, a Turkish prelate who’s served in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea since 2018, was named the new Apostolic Nuncio, or ambassador, to Sweden and Iceland Nov. 9.

During a Mass to bid him farewell organized by the Cameroon Episcopal Conference on December 12, 2022, Murat asked God and the Christians to forgive him “for his sins of omission.”

“If I hurt anyone unknowingly, please, forgive me,” he said.

“There are things you can’t forget in life, even if you have so much to do,” the nuncio said, and acknowledged the “tremendous” support he received from the Cameroon Bishops’ Conference, the Christians and the country’s authorities.

He expressed gratitude to Pope Francis for trusting him with the position and called for dialogue whenever there are differences.

“The Church wasn’t meant to separate people, but to unite those who are separated. And if there are differences as a result of different sensibilities, we should always be open to listen, to dialogue, without prejudice.”

Murat didn’t mention the one issue that has divided Cameroon and threatens to bring down the country’s very foundations: A separatist war in the country’s English-speaking regions, which has been raging since 2016.

The President of the Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Andrew Nkea lost no time in thanking the Apostolic Nuncio for his efforts at finding solutions to the crisis.

“You worked so hard to make sure that the poor and the vulnerable of our country are not forgotten,” Nkea said.

“Your love for peace, unity and reconciliation amongst Cameroonians characterized your stay in Cameroon. We will miss your spiritual diplomacy for the common good, especially for the people of the northwest and southwest regions.”

In those two territories, separatists have been fighting to create a new nation to be called “Ambazonia.” Fighting broke out in 2016 when the French-speaking central government took a hard stand against English-speaking teachers and lawyers who took to the streets to protest the over-bearing influence of French in Anglo-Saxon schools and Common Law Courts, which are signposts of the British colonial legacy to the two regions.

Nkea recalled that Murat was a key figure in the organization of a National Pilgrimage for Peace that took place at the Marian Shrine in Marienberg Edea from April 23-24, during which Cameroon was re-consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Noting that there was a time for everything, Nkea said that what’s important is “what happens between the time one is born and the moment one dies. It’s the same thing: when you arrive and when you leave is not important. What’s important is what happens between when you arrive and when you leave.”

Besides the search for peace in a divided nation, Nkea lauded the nuncio’s effort in creating a more harmonious atmosphere between the Church and the state.

“Your work in Cameroon filled a great void between the church and the state, and our church-state relations are now better understood,” he said.

In an apparent swipe at top government and religious officials present at the farewell mass, Nkea spoke at length about the notion of authority, and what it should mean in the exercise of their daily duties.

“A person in authority is not just anyone who wields coercive power over others,” the cleric said.

“The exercise of genuine authority is not to control, to keep in line, to command. On the contrary, it is to be an agent in releasing the potential that is in people: to be an empowering agent. Jesus didn’t wield coercive authority. He came not to be served but to serve. He came to lead people into the full development of what they could be, and what they were meant to be,” Nkea said.

The cleric explained that when Jesus went down on His knees to wash the feet of his disciples, it wasn’t a sign of weakness, “it was an act of authority, the authority of outreaching love.”

Noting that virtually everyone yielded some kind of authority, Nkea urged everyone to understand that all authority comes from God,” and we shall all one day answer to God how we used the authority that he gave us.”

“God gives us authority not to misuse, not to abuse, and not to impose our authority on others. All authority must be used in the fear of the Lord who is the source of all authority,” he explained.

With Christmas just days away, Nkea warned against “worldly, circular celebrations of Christmas,” and exhorted Christians to prepare to celebrate the coming Lord “with true joy and understanding…we cannot be distracted by all those excesses… and end up forgetting why we celebrate Christmas in the first place-our joy in the Lord’s coming and His salvation.”

Source: Crux

Roman Catholic Bishops in many countries in the world have reportedly barred prominent political figures from receiving Holy Communion and in some cases the Bishops have asked the politicians to confess and receive absolution of their grave sins in the sacrament of Penance. This has never been the case in Cameroon where Roman Catholic clerics are regularly killed and their bodies dumped in waters.

Last year, Cameroon Concord News Group challenged Cameroonian bishops to begin prohibiting corrupt and vicious political figures from receiving Holy Communion, but the Bishops including Archbishop Andrew Nkea and Bishop George Nkuo insisted that it would be inherently political, not pastoral. The Metropolitan Archbishop of the Bamenda Ecclesiastic Province in a conversation with this reporter opined that in as much as the Holy Roman Catholic Church is concerned about public policy, its main focus is on the spiritual care of individual Catholics. Well, that is exactly why the butcher of Yaoundé, 89-year-old President Paul Biya is still receiving Holy Communion.

The Bishops have maintained that conversation with the failed regime in Yaoundé is always better than exclusion and that the church prefers dialogue and persuasion. But regarding Mr. Paul Biya, we of the Concord Group think that for forty years in power, the policies of dialogue and persuasion have clearly been made. It is now time to bar Biya from receiving Holy Communion.  

All what Biya has done for forty years as head of state ranges from plain fiction to the most absurd and for more than six years now, Cameroon has been battling an insurgency in the country’s two English-speaking regions which is hard to overcome though the Yaoundé government has thrown everything it has at the insurgents.

More than ten thousand Cameroonians, including four thousand soldiers, have died because of the conflict in the country’s two English-speaking regions and the country’s economy is still reeling from the government generated chaos.

We of the Cameroon Concord News and the Cameroon Intelligence Report are appealing to all Cameroonian Bishops to come to the understanding that there is nothing more that can be done by the Holy Roman Catholic Church at this point to help President Biya and his ruling criminal gangs to understand the seriousness of the evil his forty year old regime is perpetrating on the Cameroonian nation. In barring President Paul Biya from receiving Holy Communion, we of the Concord Group believe that the Cameroonian Bishops will have the complete support of the Cameroonian people and the Holy Father Pope Francis who in a recent revision of the canon law spoke of responding to the demands of justice, moving the offending party to conversion, and repairing the scandal caused. Biya should even be excommunicated from the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

The Bishop of the Kumbo Diocese, His Lordship Bishop George Nkuo acknowledged some years ago in the city of Essen in Germany that he has struggled with what he should do regarding a pastoral situation in Cameroon where so many Roman Catholic political figures were in jail charged with corruption. Bishop Nkuo left the ex-students of Sacred Heart Mankon with the normal Roman Catholic prescriptions: prayer, fasting, and consultation with a broad spectrum of Catholic leaders-nothing have changed ever since the Bishop left the North Rhein Westphalia region of Germany.  

Allowing Mr. Biya to continue receiving the Holy Eucharist, the Cameroonian Bishops are apparently saying that Cameroon’s Misruler-In-Chief President Paul Biya is a good Catholic.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Amid ongoing violence pitting the country’s French-speaking majority against an embittered Anglophone minority, Cameroon’s leading Catholic cleric, Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya, has consecrated the contested Bamenda Episcopal Province to the care of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The province corresponds to the territorial circumscription of the North West and South West regions of Cameroon where a separatist war has been raging for six years. The two English-speaking regions constitute 20 percent of the country’s 27 million people.

For decades, people in the two regions have complained of marginalization from the Francophone-dominated administration in Yaoundé.

The pent-up frustrations reached a head in 2016 when Anglophone teachers and lawyers took to the streets to protest what they considered was the overbearing influence of French on the Anglo-Saxon education and Common Law systems practiced in the two regions.

The central government responded with lethal force. A separatist fringe developed and took up arms to fight for the independence of the two regions.

Amid the resulting violence, at least 6000 people have been killed, more than 700,000 people have been displaced, and an additional 70,000 Cameroonians have found refuge in Nigeria.

While ending the Marian Year and at the same time launching the Year of the Eucharist on December 6,2022, Nkea said it’s only when the entire family of God raise their voices in supplication to Mary that peace can return to the two regions.

“The Blessings of God have come down upon us in abundance,” Nkea told congregants at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Abango as he closed the Marian Year launched in December 2021, while launching the Year of the Eucharist.

“Because all the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda are present in this Shrine today, we have decided that we shall consecrate the entire Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of Peace,” Nkea announced.

“We shall appeal for her maternal intercession, so that we can know peace once again in our Church province, which corresponds to the territorial circumscription of the North West and South West regions of Cameroon. This is not our choice. It is not even our decision. It is God Himself who has decided to make it this way.”

Nkea recalled the issues he raised while launching the Marian Year in 2021 during which he dedicated the Bamenda Archdiocese to Marian care.

“Our country has been passing through a lot of difficulties,” Nkea recalls telling Christians back then.

“For the last five years, we have known fighting, killing, destruction of property, and all kinds of evil associated with war. We never knew we could see these things in our country. It is not ending. It is still continuing. Our human intelligence seems to have been blocked while looking for a solution,” Nkea recalls.

Back then, he told Christians in his diocese to raise their voices in unison in prayer for a return to peace, given the incessant killings, rapes, extortions and destruction of property.

He recalled calling on the Christians to not allow “Our Lady to have any rest until peace has come back amongst us and the killings have stopped.”

“Peace must return to Bamenda. Peace must return to our society,” the priest said, to a thunderous ‘Amen’ from the congregation.

“Jesus the Prince of Peace must come back to Cameroon, so that we all can say like the Psalmist, ‘in his days justice shall flourish’…”

He had called on Christians to visit the Marian Shrine every week in prayer and supplication to Mary.

“Our Mother Mary cannot be in Heaven and we her children are suffering on earth. All Catholics are invited to pray the Rosary daily – individually, in groups, in families, in small Christian communities, etc., so that our prayer will rise up to Heaven like one big smoke of incense. She (Mary) must hear us. And Jesus must hear us.”

Nkea said those prayers were bearing fruit, a testament to the presence of all the bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province on November 6 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.

“We never thought it would be this way,” the cleric said. The crisis had always meant difficulties in travelling, and Nkea implied that for clerics and Christians to have turned out in big numbers at the shrine means that peace was gradually returning to the regions.

“We shall not wait until we have total peace before we come to thank Our Lady for what she has done for us. We have gathered here in Abango to close the Marian Year and to tell Mary: “We thank you… We shall continue our prayers, and we shall continue to use this Shrine, so that our prayers shall not cease to storm the gates of heaven for us to have lasting peace.”

“Why shall we not have peace when Jesus is the Prince of Peace?” he asked. “And Our Blessed Mother Mary is the Queen of Peace?”

“Peace is a gift of God, because God is Peace. He blesses his people with Peace. That is why after the Resurrection, Jesus Christ assured his disciples: Peace I give you. My own peace I give you-A Peace which this world cannot give. Such Peace was only possible because Jesus had reconciled us with God and with one another.”

Nkea said only prayer will grant Cameroon that kind of peace.

Culled from Crux

The Diocese of Mamfe has directed that prayers of thanksgiving be said for the release on Saturday of nine people who were abducted in September from a local parish.

The nine were released Oct. 22.

“I urge each of you to pray a decade of the rosary in thanksgiving to God for the safe release of our brothers and sisters who were kidnapped,” Bishop Aloysius Fondong Abangalo of Mamfe said in an Oct. 23 statement to the diocese.

“I am sincerely grateful to all those who joined us in this collective effort in praying for the safety and release of our brothers and sisters,” he said, adding: “Words will only do scant justice in expressing my sentiments of gratitude to all those who collaborated with us in the process of negotiating for their safety and release.”

On Sept. 16, unidentified gunmen attacked St. Mary parish in Nchang, in Cameroon’s Southwest Region. Nine people were abducted and buildings on the parish premises, including the church, were burned down.

The attackers kidnapped Father Elias Okorie, Father Barnabas Ashu, Father Cornelius Jingwa, Father Job Francis Nwobegu, Father Emmanuel Asaba, Sister Jacinta C. Udeagha, Nkem Patrick Osang (an assistant catechist), Blanche Bright, and Mme. Kelechukwu.

In his statement announcing their release, Abangalo said: “Permit me to use this opportunity to commend your collective efforts at prayer.”

“I seize this opportunity, once again, to condemn the act of desecrating the church, in the strongest terms possible, and to decry the need for the enhancement of human dignity.”

“Taking away the freedom of our fellow brothers and sisters in order to make money at all cost is inhuman and should be desisted from whoever engages in such,” the Cameroonian bishop said.

“For those who make utterances — categorical or implicit — which fuel such actions, I suppose it is time to rethink your approach and ensure that the dignity of the human person is upheld in every way possible,” he added.

The release of the nine abductees came days after a video emerged on social media showing them asking Abangalo to secure their release.

On Oct. 24 Abangalo announced that a Mass of thanksgiving for the release of the captives was to be said the following day at the cathedral in Mamfe.

The arson attack on St. Mary parish is one of the latest incidents in the context of Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis.

The crisis is rooted in conflict between the English- and French-speaking areas of Cameroon. The area was a German colony in the late 19th century, but the territory was divided into British and French mandates after the German Empire’s defeat in World War I. The mandates were united in an independent Cameroon in 1961.

There is now a separatist movement in the Southwest and Northwest Regions, which were formerly the British Southern Cameroons.

Unrest in Cameroon has been ongoing since 2016, when the country’s Anglophone community began protests to demand the return of federalism.

Secessionist militants in the English-speaking region of Cameroon have also sought violence against government forces and began attacking military troops in 2017.

Source: CNA

Nine captives, including five priests and a religious sister, were released in Cameroon Saturday, more than a month after they were kidnapped.

The group’s release on Oct. 22 was confirmed by Bishop Aloysius Fondong Abangalo of Mamfe, reported the Vatican-based news agency Agenzia Fides.

The kidnappers struck on Sept. 16 at St. Mary’s Church in Nchang, in the troubled Southwest Region of Cameroon. They reportedly burned down the church and seized five priests, a religious sister, a male catechist, a female cook, and a 15-year-old girl living with the sisters. The captives were dubbed the “Nchang Nine” by local media.

“I take this opportunity to once again condemn in the strongest possible terms the desecration of the Church and to point out the need to protect human dignity,” Bishop Abangalo said.

“Depriving our brothers and sisters of their freedom to obtain money at any price is inhumane. For those who make statements that fuel such actions, I believe it is time to rethink one’s approach and ensure that the dignity of the human person is defended in every possible way.”

Agenzia Fides said that, although the kidnappers’ identities had not been confirmed, one of the freed captives thanked the Freedom Fighters of Ambazonia in a short video “for having released us without paying any ransom.”

Ambazonia is the name of an unrecognized breakaway state in the English-speaking area of the predominantly Francophone Cameroon.

Agenzia Fides said that the Freedom Fighters of Ambazonia could be a new organization seeking international attention through the kidnapping or “a criminal group hiding behind a political acronym to carry out kidnappings for extortion purposes.”

The Diocese of Mamfe is in the ecclesiastical province of Bamenda, which is overseen by Archbishop Andrew Nkea.

In an Oct. 4 interview with The Pillar, Archbishop Nkea said that the Church had maintained contact with the kidnappers throughout the ordeal.

“They were asking us for money and we don’t have money to give. And even if we had the money, we know that if we start, we’ll never stop. And it’s something we had agreed that we would not do — give money to kidnappers — because then we endanger the lives of all our priests and our Christians,” he said.

Pope Francis appealed for the Nchang Nine’s release during his Angelus address on Sept. 25.

The kidnappers issued a video on Oct. 19 showing the captives pleading for Church leaders to secure their release.

A civil war — known as the Anglophone Crisis or Ambazonia War — has raged since 2017 in Cameroon, pitting separatists against government forces, with Church workers often caught in the middle of the conflict.

Source: Pillar Catholic

Pope Benedict welcomed Revered Father Maurice Agbaw-Ebai in the Vatican on Thursday making him feel at home and showed great concern for the Catholic community in English speaking Cameroon that is facing difficulties.

It was a wonderful feeling meeting Pope Benedict, Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai told Cameroon Concord News.

Pope Benedict was keen to know about the Benedict XVI Institute for Africa. He was pleased the Cameroonian priest was teaching his theology in the USA.

Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai told Pope Benedict that his theology is loved and cherished all over the world. Dr Agbaw-Ebai also said Benedict’s teachings is contributing much to society and to the development of humanity, especially through a course called Joseph Ratzinger and the Enlightenment education.

Below is Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai’s address delivered during his meeting with Pope Benedict XVI

Holy Father, first of all, I wish to thank you immensely for accepting to meet me. This is a day that I never hoped for, though I have prayed for it for over 21 years. It is truly a miracle. Thank you for your generosity in receiving me. You have been the decisive spiritual and academic director of my life. I wrote my doctoral dissertation in theology on your theology of the Logos, starting with your inaugural lecture, God of Faith, God of the Philosophers. Vielen Dank.

Secondly, thank you very much for your great theological writings. When I was going for graduate studies, my Bishop then, Bishop Francis Teke Lysinge, said to me: You are going to study the theology of Pope Benedict XVI. Remember, his Theology is very spiritual. You must grow in holiness as you study him.

Holy Father, your theology has shaped and is shaping and forming a generation of young priests from Africa.

Your theology has shown us that it is beautiful to become a priest of Jesus, a friend of the Bridegroom, to use an image from your dear Augustine of Hippo.

Your theology is loved by so many young African priests and seminarians, and for that, we say, thank you.

Holy Father, presently, I teach theology and philosophy at St. John’s Seminary in Boston, MA. There, also, your theology is loved and cherished.

In fact, I teach a course called Joseph Ratzinger and the Enlightenment. Many seminarians take this course. They sent a photo of the class for me to give you, which I will give you soon. The seminarians of St. John’s Seminary and the Faculty asked me to convey their love to you.

Holy Father, with the Metropolitan Archbishop of Bamenda, Most Rev. Adrew F. Nkea, we are setting up the Benedict XVI Institute for Africa, to make your theological corpus known in the continent of Africa.

We organized a Conference at the Catholic University in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to mark the 10th anniversary of your visit to Cameroon and Angola.

We also organized a Conference at the Catholic University of Cameroon, Bamenda, to mark the 10th anniversary of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Africae Munus. We have also organized two conferences at the University of St, Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Chicago, bringing together African scholars who work in the US, to discuss and engage your theology, and form networks of support for each other along the pathway of Jesus Christ, which your theology clearly shows out to us.

Next month, to mark your 95th Birthday, we will be having another conference at the Catholic University of Cameroon, Bamenda, bringing together theologians from Africa to engage your beautiful classic, Introduction to Christianity. Please pray for this Conference.

And Holy Father, finally, and most important of all, the Archbishop of Bamenda and President of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, Most Rev. Andrew Nkea, will be inaugurating the Benedict XVI Institute for Africa as a Constituent College of the Catholic University of Cameroon, Bamenda. I hereby present to you the program, and I ask for your blessing as we begin this Theology Institute for the Continent of Africa dedicated to the study of your great life and great theological legacy, for the good of the Church in Africa and beyond, just like the Ancient Catechetical School of Alexandria.

I beg for your prayers for all these intentions, Holy Father, and also, your prayers for 5 priests, a nun, and a catechist, kidnapped in the Diocese of Mamfe in Cameroon, my home diocese, who are currently in a terrible situation in the forest. Please pray for their release and for the comfort of the peoples so affected by this conflict in Cameroon. I will also leave a list of prayer intentions with Archbishop George.

Vergelt’s Gott, Geliebter, Heiliger Vater, und Danke schön.

Rev. Maurice A. Agbaw-Ebai

St. John’s Seminary, Boston MA/Boston College, Boston MA/Merrimack College, North Andover, MA

127 Lake St Brighton MA 02135 USA

Reported by Chi Prudence Asong

A video has emerged on social media that shows five Catholic priests, a nun, and three others who were kidnapped last month in Cameroon’s Mamfe Diocese pleading with their local ordinary to secure their release.

On Sept. 16, unidentified gunmen attacked St. Mary’s Catholic Nchang Parish of Mamfe Diocese in Cameroon. Nine people were abducted and buildings on the parish premises, including the church, were burned down.

The attackers kidnapped Father Elias Okorie, Father Barnabas Ashu, Father Cornelius Jingwa, Father Job Francis Nwobegu, Father Emmanuel Asaba, Sister Jacinta C. Udeagha, Nkem Patrick Osang (an assistant catechist), Blanche Bright, and Mme. Kelechukwu.

In the 45-second video circulated Oct. 19, Father Jingwa, one of the abductees, provides updates about their welfare and pleads with Bishop Aloysius Fondong Abangalo to do “everything possible” to secure their release.

“So far it has not been easy. If you look at us, you will see our faces are very dismal, very unhappy,” Jingwa says in the video.

He adds: “It is quite difficult and we are only begging My Lord that you do everything possible to get us out of here.”

“It is a matter of do or die,” the priest laments.

“You see for example, I have been very sick, my brothers too are not feeling fine at all,” he continues.

“Please kindly, My Lord, help get us out of here. Do whatever it takes to listen to this voice and do what they ask of you. Thank you.”

In a Sept. 21 interview with ACI Africa, Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Cameroon’s Bamenda Archdiocese said the abductors “are only asking for money.”

“Those who abducted these people and set the church ablaze are only asking for ransom,” Nkea said.

“They are demanding $100,000 and they have been arguing and coming down. They are somewhere around $50,000 but we don’t have even a dollar to pay for this kind of thing,” he added.

According to Nkea, the abductors, who claim to be separatist fighters, “see the Church as a soft target to be able to make money.”

“But the Church has no money to pay ransom,” Nkea told ACI Africa.

The archbishop further said that the abductors “are claiming that the Church has not been supporting the struggle for independence by separatist fighters and so they want money.”

“We have tried to explain to all those who have … tried to abduct ministers of the Church that the Church cannot be paying ransom to separatist fighters or to criminals,” said Nkea, who has been head of the Bamenda Archdiocese since February 2020.

The arson attack on St. Mary’s Catholic Nchang Parish is one of the latest incidents in the conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking northwest and the southwest regions. The conflict was sparked by a protest involving lawyers and teachers in 2016.

An armed separatists’ movement claiming independence for the so-called republic of Ambazonia emerged following the government’s crackdown on the protests.

English is spoken by about 20% of Cameroon’s population, who have long complained about being marginalized by the French-speaking ruling class.

On Sept. 17, members of the Bamenda Provincial Episcopal Conference called on those behind the abduction “to release them without further delay.”

In a statement issued Sept. 21, Bishop Abangalo appealed for prayers for the safe release of the nine abductees.

Source:  ACI Africa