By Laura Bagnetto
Giving
birth in the bush, being forced into prostitution, unable to go to school,
struggling to take care of family – women in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions are
suffering as the crisis continues, unabated, as women such as Pearl, 30,
scramble to protect their families and survive during difficult times.
“There
was shooting from morning until night, and we don’t know who’s shooting,” says
Pearl, who fled on December 10 with her husband and three children-- and the
rest of Ekona village. It took three hours for the village to get to safety in
the bush.
She
remembers the buildup of violence around the beginning of October, when she
gave birth to her daughter in the local hospital.
“I was so
stressed because I heard the gunshots, I couldn’t nurse the baby for three days
after I gave birth,” she said. And she was one of the lucky ones.
North-West
and South-West regions erupted in violence in 2017 after a Francophone central
government crackdown on peaceful protests. The repression against Anglophone
teachers and lawyers rallying against alleged discrimination spurred an armed
separatist movement and self-declaration of independence for so-called
Ambazonia.
This
conflict has escalated between armed separatists, and the Cameroonian security
forces in the villages and towns, as people flee both sides, not knowing if a
stray bullet will kill their family members or themselves.
The
various armed groups are fighting against the Cameroonian military,
specifically the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), the elite fighting unit
accused of human rights abuses in the far north of the country.
While the
Anglophone crisis has escalated over the past three years, women who
experienced major tragedy in one blow continue to suffer.
At Mount
St. Mary hospital in Buea, General Supervisor Isadore Ngunyam reflects on the
spike in cases of sexual violence, rape, and gunshot wounds. But pregnant women
delivering babies in the bush has also increased, he says, because they are
unable to access medical assistance.
“Just two
days ago, a lady delivered somewhere in Munya. Because they were not able to
get here or somewhere else nearby, they got here two days later. As soon as
they arrived, unfortunately, we lost the child,” he said. “There are so many
cases like this, we can’t even count.”
Giving
birth in the bush has become normalized, even for the international agencies
and non-governmental organisations who are trying to help.
The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) works throughout Cameroon,
where it handles social and reproductive health. Part of its work is providing
kits, including rape kits, caesarian birth kits, and even bush kits for those
who need them.
Each bush
kit contains the essential items for women who are giving birth in the bush --
a clean plastic sheet to give birth on, gloves, scissors to cut the cord, as
well as diapers for the newborn. UNFPA has carried out bush kit distribution
since 2018.
Cameroon,
unlike a number of other countries in Central Africa, was not a war-torn state.
Cameroonians lived in relative peace in the Anglophone regions until three
years ago. There was no need to flee to the bush; major attacks on civilians in
the Anglophone regions were not commonplace before the separatists took up
arms.
“We were
taught in history class, that Cameroon, our country, is the most peaceful
country in Africa, and the world,” says Jacqueline, who works at the South-West/North-West Task Force,
a civil society group that focuses on helping women.
“Everything
is changing, and it is affecting women seriously because they have never
experienced this kind of situation -- every day you learn a new strategy to
deal with it. Every day. Women give birth in the bushes, there’s gang rape, and
women have been tortured -- it’s terrible,” she says.
She
speaks of a story of one woman in Bamenda, the biggest city in the Anglophone
North-West region, who was raped and then shot in her vagina.
“I think
every woman in Cameroon now, especially in the North-West and the South-West,
feels useless. There’s no point in giving birth to a child who could be killed
at any time. There’s no need to get pregnant, because you might end up in the
bush,” she adds.
The
desperation of some families, who find themselves barely surviving, turn to
vulnerable family members, creating a cycle of abuse.
Joyce,
21, was in the lower sixth at school in Buea, the capital of the South-West
region, where children can go to school, relatively out of harm from the
separatists.
Her
parents were living in a nearby village until gunshots and arson by the
military became a regular occurrence in their hamlet, and they fled to the
jungle, along with most of the community. Joyce was visiting her family on
school holiday, and ended up there too, unable to go to back to school.
“I met a
guy in the bush and he said he was going to help me leave there and come to
town in Kumba,” says Joyce. Desperate to get back to school, she followed him.
“I got pregnant. Since then I haven’t seen him,” she says.
Her
nightmare continued after she moved in with her unmarried aunt, who rents a
house in Kumba. Although Joyce’s aunt sells food, she says it was not enough to
pay the rent. She and other families in town struggle to pay their rent, an
expense they did not have in the village when they were living in their own
home before the crisis broke out.
“When she
sells food, men and boys come and tell her they like me, so she tells them to
pay her so I will go and sleep with them,” says Joyce, her voice dropping to
almost a whisper. She looks older than her 21 years, wearing a large, long
brown dress and a youthful neon pink head wrap, the only sign betraying her
true age.
The men
pay her aunt 2,000 Central African CFA Francs, the equivalent of three euros,
every time she is forced to have sex with a man.
“I feel
bad. It’s not good. I’m not happy doing it, but I don’t have anywhere to go,
that’s why,” she says, her eyes brimming with tears.
“People
laugh at me and they say I’m sleeping with men old enough to be my father. I
don’t care about them because I know deep in me, it’s not what I want,” she
adds.
Going
back to the bush with her parents is not an option, because Joyce is still
breastfeeding her 2-month old son.
One
casualty of the ongoing crisis is the family unit -- those who have not had a
loved one killed or maimed in the fighting have lost touch with them in the
scramble for safety during attacks by soldiers or the separatists.
Twenty-year-old Chloe, from Berera village, lives with her parents and
two-year-old child in Mamfe. They fled to the safety of town after her brother,
Caius, was shot in the head and left for dead. He was walking to Mamfe and did
not see who shot him.
While
Caius receives medical treatment in Douala, Chloe says her husband, Donald,
fled to neighboring Nigeria after he witnessed the whole village burnt down and
saw people killed. Chloe says life is expensive in Mamfe, but would she think
of joining her husband in Nigeria?
“Nigeria
is too stressful,” she laughs nervously. Donald calls her from a refugee camp
when he can.
“He tells
me they have nothing to eat, that they are suffering. We say we’re better here
in Cameroon than in Nigeria.”
While
Chloe speaks to her husband, Nora, 26, has no idea about the whereabouts of her
partner, the father of five-month-old Hosea, asleep but breathing heavily in
her arms. He has never seen Hosea. Everyone fled when the military burnt their
house and killed her brother in a close-by village last May.
“We don’t
know if my husband’s actually dead or if he ran to an area that has no
[telephone] network,” says Nora. She leaves Hosea with a neighbor and goes back
to the village during the day to pick cassava to sell in town so she can pay
the rent in Mamfe.
The
majority of women with children say they left the village to escape the
gunfire, but they also want to give their children an education. The crisis
began in part due to the influx of Francophone teachers in to Anglophone
classrooms in the North-West and South-West regions. The separatists have
prevented children from going to school as part of their action against the
government.
Some
children in the regions have not attended school for three years-- the schools
in the villages located on the main road from Buea towards Kumba and further on
to Mamfe are empty. Many of the bungalow cinderblock-built schools have been
torched; others have sprouted vegetation growing in cracks in the walls; all
are abandoned.
In Buea,
however, the seat of the South-West region, children are attending school in
relative safety. The military remain a large, looming presence on the streets
of the regional capital.
Victorine,
a 16-year-old student in Form 3, is currently living in Buea with her aunt. She
excels at geography and hopes to become a doctor one day.
“I love
school…but my four brothers and sisters are still suffering in the bush.
There’s malaria and a lot of insecurity and I worry about them,” she says. “I
want them to have the opportunity to go to school and continue their study,”
she adds.
Victorine
attends classes with 13-year-olds, while her friends of the same age are in
Form 5. She is behind because she did not attend school for three years.
Other
families in town struggle to pay their rent, an expense they did not have in
the village when they were living in their own home. Emily, 28, exhales loudly
when asked when she left her village to come to Buea with her husband and four
children.
“We came
on August 16. They burned our house down, my children had not been going to
school for two years, and we were living in the bush for six months before
coming here,” she says, looking spent after cataloguing the events in her life
over the past year.
Emily’s
brother-in-law is helping pay the school fees for her children, and the whole
family lives with him, which can be difficult, she says.
Jobs are
scarce in the Anglophone areas, as Anglophones say government jobs frequently
go to Francophones, one of the reasons for the start of protests in the first
place.
Emily,
like other women, sells fried doughnuts, called ‘gateaux’ or ‘puff-puff’ on the
street to make money for school fees, food and rent.
Women say
neither the military nor the Amba Boys separatists respect women and children,
according to the numerous interviews carried out by RFI in the region. Women
and children have been shot, killed, set on fire, just like the boys and men in
the Anglophone regions.
Agatha
barely escaped with her life the day separatists surrounded the plantation she
worked on. She had worked for the Cameroonian Development Company (CDC), the
country’s second-largest employer, for 28 years.
The
Anglophone separatists reportedly consider those who work for CDC, a parastatal
company, as traitors, and attack workers, cutting off their fingers.
As they
rushed in, the workers, including Agatha, were bending back the metal fence to
escape into the bush.
“The
military were shooting and the Ambazonia forces were shooting all over the
place,” says Agatha. Her back is scarred from the metal fence that cut her as
she fled. After four days in the bush, relatives sent her mobile money and she
used that for herself and fellow workers to come to Buea.
She also
lives in Kumba and is struggling to feed her children. The stress of the
situation has had a negative impact on her health. She collapsed one month
after leaving the bush.
“They did
tests and found out I have high blood pressure,” says Agatha.
The
enormity of the crisis is not lost on Baudouin Akoh Ngah, the founder and head
of Global Forum for the Defense of the Less Privileged (GFDLP) in Buea.
Ngah’s organization provides a number of services for the neediest, from
providing legal aid, to helping re-register those who have lost their
identification cards and birth certificates.
But
Ngah’s biggest project to date is his plan to open a crisis centre for the most
vulnerable Anglophones, with a focus on young women.
“A lot of
them are victims of gender-based violence… and young girls who have been
displaced have health issues,” he tells RFI, while standing on one hectare of
land outside of Buea where he plans to build a facility that will incorporate
job training, healthcare, and a small school.
“We would
like to have part of the facility where visiting doctors can see patients,” he
says, pointing to an area covered in banana trees. Another section is earmarked
for food processing training for young girls, which would be separate from the
small school for displaced children that he envisions.
The land
is property of GFDLP -- now he needs partners to make his plans to come to
fruition.
The
possibility of a place that could help the neediest is welcome for people like
former CDC worker Agatha, who are barely surviving.
“Sister,
for now, I get no hopes,” she says in Pidgin English. “Because when you get
money or do something, you get hopes. But I don’t do anything now, so I not got
no hopes.” - Rfi
*Names
have been changed for the safety and security of those featured in this report
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