By Josephine Peterson, Catholic News Service
«Voices in the bushes.» That is the fear that defines daily life for many residents of this town in Cameroon's troubled English-speaking region.
«You don't know where they are,» Cajetan Nfor told Catholic News Service April 16. «You don't know how many there are.» A resident of Bamenda since 1964, Nfor has witnessed firsthand the rapid decline of the town he calls home.
What began in 2016 as a political protest movement led by English-speaking professors and lawyers denouncing professional and political marginalization by Cameroon's majority Francophone government quickly devolved into violence. Armed separatist groups emerged in the Anglophone regions, initially with some support from residents.
But as time passed, the movement changed and separatist groups began to terrorize their own.
Development of the conflict
Armed groups began kidnapping civilians, looting businesses and imposing their control through fear. Today, residents of northwest Cameroon say they live caught between separatist fighters and government forces, both capable of violence. Human Rights Watch estimated in 2024 that more than 6,000 civilians had died at the hands of both sides after a decade of conflict.
Thousands of people have been kidnapped, many killed, while others have been sexually assaulted, beaten and held for ransom.
Among them was Sister Carine Tangiri Mangu, of the Sisters of St. Anne congregation, who told Pope Leo XIV during a community meeting on April 16 that she and a priest were taken «into the bush» in November 2025 and held for three days.
Denied food, water and sleep
«We went on hunger strike and explained to our captors that we were simply doing our work for the poor and had nothing to do with politics,» he said at the meeting, which was attended by local representatives of different religions and traditions. «They demanded that we give them our phone numbers so they could collect the ransom.».
As he recounted, they prayed the rosary incessantly and were finally released after local Christians negotiated their release.
Other residents present at the meeting with the Pope shared similar accounts with Catholic News Service, describing kidnappings for ransom and beatings perpetrated while family members listened on the phone.
Cameroon's Anglophone separatist groups, which began fighting for the independence of the country's English-speaking regions, have increasingly turned to criminal activities to finance their rebellion, while violence against civilians has increased. In the first half of 2024, the northwest region ranked as the second most dangerous administrative area for civilians in Africa, behind only Al-Jazirah state in central Sudan, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Events Data Project.
Latest events
In addition to fear of the separatists, many residents fear retaliation by the army. Nfor reported that on two occasions in the course of a week last month, he woke up to gunfire in his street. On both occasions, when he went outside, he found the bodies of two neighbors lying in the street about 500 meters from his house.
According to him, his street has become a dumping ground where heavy rains wash away dead bodies. He believes that the deceased were victims of routine law and order enforcement. Human Rights Watch reported in 2024 that the army is known to directly target local civilians.
Before the crisis, he remembers a very different Bamenda: a vibrant city of 630,000 inhabitants, where this kind of fear did not exist.
«Imagine a river flowing slowly, murmuring, and you in a boat enjoying the ripples,» Nfor said. «That was the kind of life that was lived here.».
That life has completely disappeared.
Social deterioration
Bamenda, once one of the country's most economically dynamic cities, has been devastated by years of conflict. Traders have fled after repeated looting and kidnappings. Farmers struggle to cultivate their land for fear of being kidnapped and killed. Roads are dangerous, as separatists have strongholds along the main thoroughfares, and the movement of goods is very difficult.
Food prices have skyrocketed and access to medical care is limited as the region becomes increasingly isolated.
«No one stays out after 7 p.m.,» Nfor said. «If you're still out there and you don't have transportation ... it becomes impossible.».
Even short journeys have become an ordeal. Trips that used to take a few hours can now take up to half a day as drivers avoid conflict zones.
For Joseph Kitu, the violence has made it impossible to return to his hometown.
«For the past ten years, our lives have been miserable,» he told CNS as he waited for the Pope to arrive at the community meeting. «We have lost family members. They burned our houses, looted our properties. I am an orphan. My parents passed away because of this.».
The Pope's words
As soon as the Pope arrived in war-torn Cameroon on April 15, he did not hesitate to deliver a message of peace that directly confronted the suffering people face on a daily basis.
In clear and direct language, the Pope spent his time in Cameroon denouncing violence, corruption and exploitation, while advocating reconciliation and credible leadership. He has repeatedly raised peace not as an abstract ideal, but as a responsibility shared by political leaders, communities and individuals alike.
In his first meeting with the diplomatic corps in Cameroon, he urged leaders to overcome paralysis and fear.
«We live in a time where hopelessness is spreading and the feeling of impotence tends to paralyze the renewal so longed for by the peoples,» he declared in Yaoundé, at the presidential palace, on April 15. «There is a great thirst for justice! A thirst for participation, for a vision, for courageous decisions and for peace!»
To politicians
The Pope began his call for peace in the country during an address to the diplomatic corps and 93-year-old President Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982 and whose long rule has drawn criticism from opposition figures and human rights groups. Quoting his spiritual father, St. Augustine, the Pope said the saint believed that those who govern must do so to serve the people, and that they must govern «not for love of power, but out of a sense of duty to others.».
«From this perspective, serving the homeland means dedicating oneself, with a clear mind and an upright conscience, to the common good of all the citizens of the nation,» he said.
Throughout this leg of his apostolic journey, which spanned hundreds of miles and three cities, Pope Leo XIV condemned what he described as a global system that fosters conflict for profit. After listening to residents express fear, loss and exhaustion during the April 16 meeting, the Pope acknowledged both the violence within the country and the external forces that have deepened the crisis.
«The architects of war pretend to ignore that an instant is enough to destroy, but that often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild,» he said during the community meeting in Bamenda. «Those who plunder the resources of your land often invest much of the proceeds in weapons, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of destabilization and death.».
The power of profit
«Added to these internal problems, often fueled by hatred and violence, is the damage caused from outside, by those who, in the name of profit, continue to take over the African continent to exploit and plunder it,» the Pope said April 16 in a homily during Mass at Bamenda International Airport before an estimated crowd of 20,000 people.
The depletion of a land rich in resources and marked by suffering was a theme to which the Pope repeatedly returned.
«It is a world turned upside down, an exploitation of God's creation that must be denounced and rejected by every honest conscience,» the Pope told the community meeting, describing the exploitation of both people and the earth. «The world is being devastated by a handful of tyrants, but it is held together by a multitude of brothers and sisters in solidarity!».
This is how he urged Cameroonians not to give up after years of violence: working together and serving each other no matter what.
Call for change
«This is the moment to change, to transform the history of this country,» Pope Leo XIV said in his homily in Bamenda. «The time has come, today and not tomorrow, now and not in the future.».
His presence alone has already had an impact on the English-speaking region of Cameroon. After years of neglect, the Bamenda airport was repaired prior to the papal visit, and the main access road to the city was completed, making it easier for residents to get around, locals told Catholic News Service.
Religious leaders in the region have begun pushing for dialogue between the government and separatist groups, describing the conflict as one of the world's «forgotten crises.» Rev. Fonki Samuel Forba of the Presbyterian Church said the Vatican has shown willingness to support mediation efforts.
At a community meeting, Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda told the Pope that his visit came at a critical time, stating that the land of Bamenda has «drunk the blood of many of our children.».
«Bamenda will never forget that you visited them and prayed for them, and even more, that you visited them when they needed you most,» Archbishop Fuanya said after the Pope's homily at the Mass celebrated at the airport.
For many residents, however, the road to peace is complicated by the reality on the ground. Years of instability have created incentives for young fighters to remain in armed groups.
«How could you see someone who was making $5 or $2 a week suddenly start making $200 a day?» said Nfor. «How do you expect him to give up his gun?»
With young people
The Pope addressed this reality directly, especially in his appeal to young people, precisely the group most vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups.
«Dear young people... Be the first faces and hands to bring the bread of life to your neighbors, giving them the nourishment of wisdom and freedom from all that does not nourish them, but obscures good desires and robs them of their dignity,» he said during an April 17 Mass in front of the Japona Stadium in Douala before a crowd of more than 120,000 people. «Do not let yourselves be corrupted by temptations that waste your energies and do not serve the progress of society.».
The Pope urged them to see their future not in violence or quick profit, but in rebuilding their communities.
«Do not forget that your people are even richer than this land, for its treasure lies in its values: faith, family, hospitality and work,» he said during the open-air Mass. He especially exhorted them to «proclaim the Gospel without ceasing.».
At the university
In an address delivered at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Duoala, Pope Leo XIV elaborated on this concept, stating that for change to occur, students must cultivate moral discernment.
«No society, in fact, can prosper unless it is founded on consciences of integrity, formed in truth,» he told professors and students on April 17. «Do not look away: this is a service to truth and to all humanity.».
Many have told CNS that the Pope's visit has rekindled hope.
Jeneth Moki said she has lived through years of what she calls «sad patience,» watching friends and family die while fearing for her own safety.
«If I go [to my village], I won't come back,» Moki said before the April 16 community meeting. «They are going to kidnap me.».
Esperanza
The Pope himself seemed to recognize both the pain and resilience of the people before him.
«How beautiful are also your feet, dusty for this land stained with blood but fertile, battered but rich in vegetation and fruits !», he said during the community meeting. «Your feet have brought you here, and despite the difficulties and obstacles, they have kept on the path of good ».
Addressing those who have endured years of suffering, the Pope said, «Bamenda, today you are the city on the hill, resplendent in the eyes of all! Sisters and brothers, be the salt that continually gives flavor to this land. Do not lose your flavor, not even in the years to come!».
Those attending the meeting shared this optimism. Regina Anchang commented that some traveled for hours, even days before, just to be present for the visit. She said that, of all the places in the world, her community feels recognized.
«We need nothing but peace,» he said.
Time and again, the Pope posited peace not simply as the absence of violence, but as something built through concrete acts of solidarity.
«There is bread for all if it is taken, not with a hand that snatches, but with a hand that gives,» the Pope said during his homily in Douala, urging both leaders and the community to reject exploitation and opt for mutual accountability.
According to him, every act of solidarity becomes «a little piece of bread for humanity in need of care,» but there also needs to be more.
«This alone is not enough: the food that sustains the body must be accompanied, with equal charity, by food for the soul, food that sustains our conscience and gives us firmness in the dark hours of fear and amid the shadows of suffering,» the Pope said in Douala.
But turning that call for peace into reality for a country scarred by years of violence and mistrust remains a challenge.
The vice president of Cameroon's national bishops« conference, Bishop Philippe Alain Mbarga of Ebolowa, warned that the Pope's visit is not a »magic wand« and that the »walls of tribalism, the walls of hatred" must be torn down.
«The people are demanding responsibility from us, they are asking us to recognize that the destiny of humanity, of the country, is in our hands,» he said in an interview with Catholic News Service. «They have called on political leaders, religious leaders and civil society to take responsibility. Therefore, it is up to each one of us to be aware of what is at stake.».
Archbishop Fuanya told the Pope that the people «must not waste the opportunity that your presence gives us to continue working for peace, justice and reconciliation.».
For now, residents resume their routines: weathering the danger and weighing hope against experience. In Bamenda, the voices in the bushes have not disappeared.
But in the midst of fear, another voice has emerged, Peter's successor, insisting that even here, in a place marked by violence, it is still possible to choose peace.
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