By Peter Tanka
In its eight-year and running, the Anglophone crisis has continually torn families apart, as some now live, not knowing the whereabouts of their loved ones.
While some are simply missing, some are dead, but in most cases, relatives are clueless as to what might have happened to their family members. This makes many to live in fear.
In the two restive Anglophone regions of Cameroon where Ambazonia separatist fighters and government troops have been battling each other since 2017, many people have died, and often times, the victims are not identified and are as such, buried by communities found around where they died, – often after the corpse is in an advanced stage of decomposition.
While some of the victims are recognised actors in the conflict, others tend to be just regular folks caught in the cross fighting, or brought down by a stray bullet of the warring parties. As such, it is easy to hear of unidentified corpses rotting in neighbourhoods in the two regions. In some cases, good Samaritans ferry such bodies to nearby morgues hoping that the families can identify and collect the remains for burial. As such, it is easier to read announcements from hospitals in the crisis-affected regions, calling on the population to come and identify such bodies. When such bodies are not identified, they are handed to municipal authorities for burial. When such things occur, family members often live with the illusion or hope that their loved ones are somewhere.
In most cases where a family is targeted by government soldiers or separatist fighters, this often sends them scampering into different directions and areas for safety. They often get disconnected from each other, and while some may end up making it to safety, some don’t, but with the disconnections, they can hardly tell, whether they all made it or not. In some unfortunate instances, they end up learning of the death of a loved one, sometimes late after they were long buried. This is usually after frantic searches. This has devastated many, and left families shredded. For some lucky ones, they often end up reuniting in neighbouring countries like Nigeria, or other towns of Cameroon.
Amongst many of such stories, is that of the family of late Besong Abraham and wife, Beltha, who are said to have died sometime in August 2012. The children of the late Ashum couple living along the Kumba-Mamfe road in Cameroon’s Southwest region were reportedly torn apart when their family house was burnt down when the crisis escalated, and with the unrest in their village and targeted arrests, they all scampered into different directions to seek refuge.
One of them, Paul Ayuk Besong, who returned in April this year several years after he left in 2013 following his parent’s death before the crisis erupted, launched a frantic search for the other missing members of the family, but said there was little success. He said they also lost another relative, Besong George after another incident when he returned. He later on went silent and has not been heard from. This happened following a gun battle between separatist fighters and government forces along the Ashum and Bakebe road. It was alleged that he had escaped alongside others through Nigeria following a violent hunt for perpetrators.
Stories like these are many throughout the crisis-affected regions of the country, where either separatist fighters or government troops or sometimes both, go after suspects and with the loose system that does not prioritise checks and balances, many end up dead, with no one accounting for their whereabouts or fully taking responsibility for their predicament.