Archbishop Jean Mbarga of Yaoundé says the Catholic Church can play a big role in helping Cameroonians affected by the secessionist uprising in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, as well as the millions of Cameroonians affected by poverty and other hardships.

During an event to launch a fund-raising to benefit the poor and destitute of Cameroon, the archbishop talked about charity as a major part of the Christian faith, and the role the Church’s aid agency Caritas has to play.

“The Caritas Foundation-Cameroon is the voice of the bishops at the service of the poor,” Mbarga told journalists during a press conference in Yaoundé on Nov. 12.

“The bishops have decided to not remain indifferent, vis-à-vis the growth of misery. That is why we put in place the Caritas Foundation. That means that henceforth, we have a reliable instrument to sensitize the population on the need for generosity, mobilize for the African hospitality and above all mobilize for Christian charity,” he said.

The archbishop pointed out Cameroon was host to hundreds of thousands of refugees who need “to find a home among us. The needy should find help.”

Most of the refugees in Cameroon are fleeing internal conflicts in Chad and the Central African Republic.

Mbarga said the poor and destitute require access to water and healthcare, young people need support to set up enterprises, and projects of community interest need to be carried out.

“Remember that Caritas is an institution for aid and development,” the archbishop said.

Of great concern to the archbishop is the ongoing Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, where government forces have been fighting separatists in Cameroon’s English-speaking North West and South West regions for nearly two years now.

Teachers’ and lawyers’ strikes in 2016 over perceived attempts by the francophone-dominated administration to destroy the Anglo-Saxon-educational and legal systems practiced in Anglophone Cameroon mutated into political demands for independence by the Anglophone minority, who make up around 20 percent of the population.

Now separatists wish to establish a new country, called Ambazonia.

The crisis has led to the displacement of at least 437,000 people, according to the UNHCR, most of them in dire need of humanitarian assistance. In addition, 58 schools have been destroyed and 3.3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

“This year’s fund-raising naturally targets those in need and in emergency situations,” Mbarga said.

“Last year, we were living in relative peace. This year, we are faced with very heavy humanitarian needs. How do we take part in that reconstruction work as Christians and how do we come to the help of the affected families, who have lost loved ones? How do we help in rebuilding schools and hospitals that have been burnt? All these require of us, generosity,” the archbishop said.

While the Anglophone crisis has dominated the news from the country, Cameroon’s rates of poverty remain disheartening: At least 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and 70 percent of the country’s over 25 million people still don’t have access to potable water.

The Director of Caritas Foundation Cameroon, Father Kisito Mballa Onana, said Cameroon was also suffering from a refugee crisis as a result of the fighting in the Anglophone regions.

“They live under precarious conditions,” he said.

“The Church wants to do something in terms of improving their living conditions, education, training and healthcare.”

Cameroon was governed under a federal system of government between 1961-1972, giving English-speakers a large degree of autonomy from the French-speaking majority.

The Catholic Church has been opposed to secession, calling on the authorities to initiate an inclusive dialogue with the various stakeholders.

In a May 16 letter, the bishops called for an end to the fighting.

“Let’s stop all forms of violence, and let’s stop killing each other. We are all brothers and sisters; let’s engage in dialogue, reconciliation, justice and peace.”

But the situation has continued to get worse.

“These last days, the number of deaths and people kidnapped has continued to rise…the secessionists are gaining ground. They too are violent and kill people,” Onana told Crux.

Source: Crux

The stakes are high and believers are running out of places to go as Cameroon wages war on two fronts. Illia Djadi – Africa Bureau Chief at World Watch Monitor – describes a Boko Haram insurgency in northern Cameroon. “Ministers in that area are not safe,” he notes. “They had to leave the area or [be] attacked, ransacked, set on fire, destroyed by Boko Haram.

“We had a number of stories of church ministers killed by Boko Haram. Attacked and killed.”

At the same time, government forces are fighting armed separatists in western Cameroon.

Fighting in the North

(Screenshot)

Boko Haram officially began expanding its operations from Nigeria into Cameroon in October 2014. However, northern Cameroon was one of the first places authorities searched six months earlier following Boko Haram’s infamous Chibok abduction. Last month, 57 Chibok captives were spotted at two Boko Haram strongholds.

On Holy Week in April 2014, Boko Haram abducted hundreds of schoolgirls from Chibok, Nigeria, sparking international outcry. Over 50 girls escaped during the initial months of their captivity, and 106 have been released so far. One hundred are still thought to be in the grasp of terrorists.

Furthermore, Boko Haram terrorists are reportedly raiding and pillaging villages throughout northern Cameroon, stealing food and destroying property. “They (Christians) had to leave,” says Djadi.

“They had to run for their own life, for their own safety, and for the safety of their children and families.”

Fighting in the West

As explained in this report by BBC News, the clash between English-speaking separatists and Cameroon’s French-speaking government began last year. The conflict has killed hundreds since then, and approximately 436,000 have been displaced.

(Screenshot captured from Charles Wesco memorial video)

American missionary Charles Wesco was caught in the crossfire at the end of October. Wesco and his family moved to Cameroon from Indiana to begin missionary service 12 days before he was fatally shot.

“This American missionary has become [the] victim of an issue…but before him, other church ministers, leaders, have also been killed,” Djadi states.

The separatist conflict may seem limited to western Cameroon, Djadi adds, but it could quickly become a regional issue.

“That’s exactly what happened with Boko Haram. It first affected north-eastern Nigeria, and now…it is affecting northern Cameroon. It is affecting Chad, it’s affecting Niger.”

3 ways to pray for Cameroon

For their safety, believers are being told to leave both northern and western Cameroon. Djadi says the dilemma is more complicated than it appears.

“They have a strong sense of their calling, to go there even if it’s not safe,” he explains.

“That’s the key issue: what to do? There’s no easy answer.”

While the crisis in Cameroon is multifaceted, there are three specific ways you can pray. First, pray for peace.

“For missionaries [and] churches to run their ministries, they need peace,” notes Djadi.

Second, ask the Lord to protect His followers in Cameroon, and pray for wisdom as they make difficult choices. Third, “pray for the Cameroon authorities, political authorities, for wisdom.”

Source: Mission Network News

Three Franciscan sisters and 13 novices travelling from Bamenda to Shisong in Northwest Cameroon have been released, after they were captured by separatist fighters in the small village of Bamessing yesterday.

The hostage-takers were positively identified by an ecclesiastical source as the “Amba boys” – separatist fighters using hit-and-run tactics to engage the armed forces of the Republic of Cameroon in a guerilla warfare for the separation of English-speaking Cameroon from French-speaking Cameroon and the independence of the new nation they have named ‘Ambazonia.’

This nearly three-year conflict has led to several hundred deaths on both the militia and government forces sides, 300,000 refugees in Nigeria and more than 80,000 internally displaced persons in Cameroon.

The separatist fighters are known to dig up trenches on the main road leading from Bamenda, the capital city of the Northwest Region, to many other villages and towns surrounding it, mainly in a bid to prevent military transport and soldiers from reaching their hideouts.

The kidnappers held the religious sisters and their novices hostage in a remote bush overnight, as negotiations took place between an official of the Diocese of Kumbo and the hostage takers.

A source at the Diocese of Kumbo confirmed that the Amba boys had taken the sisters hostage because of what they perceived to be the support of the Church for a peace conference convened by Christian Cardinal Tumi.

The sisters and the novices were released unharmed on the afternoon of November 16. They were handed over to representatives of the Diocese of Kumbo. The conditions of their release were not clear.

Source: Catholic News Agency

Kidnappers released this week the last of more than 80 hostages taken from a Presbyterian school in Cameroon amid an escalating crisis in the Central African country’s English-speaking regions.

Just over a week after being captured at gunpoint, the principal, dorm warden, and two remaining students were freed Monday, while the rest of the victims, students ages 11–17, were let go last week, Reuters reported.

The Presbyterian-run boarding school in the region’s capital, Bamenda, has been forced to shut down since the captors threatened further attacks.

The incident represents the latest of at least four school abductions over the past two months, and about a dozen over the past year, as unrest over disparities between Cameroon’s English-speaking North-West and South-West regions and the nation’s French-speaking majority turns increasingly violent. Another 11 boys had been taken from the same school the week before.

And the kidnappings, as heart-wrenching as they are, represent just a small portion of the violence that has left the Anglophone region on the brink of civil war.

An estimated 400 civilians have died in the dispute, including an American missionary caught in the crossfire last month, just weeks after moving to Cameroon. More than a quarter-million people have fled their homes and villages, and many who remain are desperate for security and resources.

Cameroon’s churches, whose cry for peace has intensified over the past few months, have suffered in the separatist conflict, with four church buildings taken over by military forces and at least 50 Christian-run primary schools, secondary schools, and hospitals affected, according to Gustav Ebai, information and communication secretary for the Council of Protestant Churches of Cameroon.

“We have failed God,” he said in an interview with CT. “There is no evil like the evil I have seen in my country.”

The instability in North-West and South-West dampened celebrations for the coastal nation’s 61st annual Presbyterian Church Day, held last Sunday.

“Given what the Anglophone community is passing through at this moment, we cannot really celebrate; feasting and enjoying ourselves while many of God’s children are being killed, living in pains, frustrated and others living as internal and external refugees,” stated Fonki Samuel Forba, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC).

He advised congregations in the PCC—the largest local English-speaking denomination, with over a million members—to keep observances low-key and to use the occasion to raise awareness about those impacted by the recent violence.

More than 100 PCC pastors are believed to have fled the two regions as conditions worsen; in Bamenda, some residents fear that even traveling or attending typical gatherings could put them at risk of attacks. Ebai told CT that in many villages, the pastors were the last to leave.

PCC leaders have helped coordinate counseling for displaced families who have moved in with friends or fellow church members in safer regions. Millions are in need of humanitarian aid as a result of the conflict. Those who are left in the Anglophone region tend to be the poorest and neediest—the ones without means to flee elsewhere.

“… [M]uch emphasis should be laid on raising Mission Work Fund to enable the Church continue to attend to our displaced pastors and brethren affected by the armed conflict that has brought sorrow and suffering upon many,” Forba stated. “As we keep on praying and trusting that soon the Lord would turn our mourning to rejoicing and the flourishing of life in absolute peace and justice, remain inspired.”

The escalating violence in the Anglophone regions coincided with a tense election held last month, which re-elected 85-year-old President Paul Biya for his seventh term in office; he has ruled since 1982.

Though Cameroon’s two languages and corresponding cultural differences date back to British and French colonial rule, the conflict has emerged more recently as English speakers in North-West and South-West began to protest against discrimination from the French majority in the national government about two years ago.

The Anglophones—who represent 3 million people and approximately a fifth of the nation’s population—defended their place in local schools and courts in particular. Their protests eventually spurred an intense separatist movement when Biya responded by sending an elite military unit to the area.

Because the education system has become a major point of contention between the two sides, the armed separatists have burned or taken over more than 100 schools in western Cameroon in the past year.

Many Cameroonians suspect an unfair election and worry that there will not be a peaceful resolution for the English-speaking regions under Biya, since the affected areas are also a political stronghold for his opposition.

“Before, during, and after the presidential elections that just ended in Cameroon, Christians, and many believers of other faiths, prayed for this country. They prayed like they never did before,” wrote Buma Kor Dickson, a Christian publisher based in Yaoundé.

“The fact is that Cameroonians on both sides prayed for change, but the answer is still to come. God is not done with Cameroon, yet!”

At Presbyterian Church Bastos, in the capital city of Yaoundé, Emmanuel Basam urged Christians to continue praying for peace, calling to mind the Presbyterian schools and hospitals threatened by attacks to the west.

For over a year, Basam has addressed the Anglophone-Francophone conflict in his preaching, including sermons on loving your enemies, seeking unity, and praying for God to heal the land.

The national Protestant council adopted Deuteronomy 19:10 as a theme verse earlier this year: “Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed” (NIV). Now, they have focused their prayers on restoration, based on 2 Corinthians 13:11: “Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you” (NIV).

Ebai has urged churches to use the global coverage and attention around the recent kidnappings as an opportunity to double-down on their message, condemning the current violence and calling for peaceful discussion.

“We need to communicate it at all levels, at every church, every sermon, every Sunday,” he said. “If you are praying without action, how do you expect God to use you?”

Seeing the conflict as a humanitarian crisis, Christian denominational leaders have taken the initiative to promote dialogue between the government and the secessionists, Christian leaders told CT. Many of their own have fled the region for safer cities, or even left the country for neighboring Nigeria, as the threat of violence grew more severe.

Ebai, whose family is from South-West, has taken in 15 relatives and visits family in the region at least once a month. Four of his cousins, including two in the military, have died in the fighting.

Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Catholic clergy in the majority-Christian nation have partnered with Muslim leaders to offer to work as mediators, but officials feared political motives behind their efforts, Catholic newspaper La Croix reported.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International condemned the indiscriminate killings, attacks, and abductions suffered by ordinary people living in North-West and South-West.

American missionary Charles Wesco numbers among the civilian victims. The Baptist pastor and father of eight was killed on October 30, less than two weeks after his family moved from Indiana to outside Bamenda.

“We deplore the death of the missionary,” Edward Njini, pastor of Nkwen Baptist Church in Bamenda, told Religion News Service. “It is unfortunate they fired the guns and he was killed. I don’t think he was a target.”

Wesco and a fellow missionary were driving into town when their vehicle was shot; both the separatists and the government forces blame the other side for the killing.

Family members and fellow missionaries honored Wesco at a memorial service in South Bend, Indiana on Monday. They “have been praying diligently for the man that took Charles’ life,” said Randy King, a pastor who served for 30 years in Cameroon.

“But I pray as a missionary to Cameroon that I … might one day have the opportunity to meet Charles’ killer to express our forgiveness to him and in love, seek to lead him to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior that he might also receive God’s forgiveness for what he did.”

Catholic media report that a Catholic seminarian, Gerard Anjiangwe, was also killed last month, and a priest in the South-West town of Bomaka was shot in July.

Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Far North region continues to suffer under the threat of Boko Haram terrorists. Christianity Today recently reported its November cover story from neighboring Nigeria on the relentless attacks the church there has faced from Boko Haram and militant Fulani herdsmen.

Culled from Christianity Today International(US)