On November 12, 2024, Cameroonian humanitarian worker, Achileus Tardzenyuy, was abducted by separatist fighters while carrying out maternal health work in the conflict-affected Southwest Region.
At the time, Tardzenyuy was leading the Maternal Health Mobile Hub, MH-MH, an initiative providing maternal healthcare support to pregnant women living in hard-to-reach communities affected by the Anglophone conflict.
Earlier that day, he had been involved in transporting a pregnant woman who had developed complications during delivery and needed to be transferred to a referral hospital for an emergency Caesarean Section.
After helping with the referral, Tardzenyuy returned to the community where his team was distributing delivery kits and providing antenatal care consultations.
It was there that armed separatist fighters arrived.
According to Tardzenyuy, the fighters demanded to know who was in charge of the project.
He identified himself.
Speaking about the incident after his release, Tardzenyuy recalled: “They asked who was the Project Lead. I immediately told them that I was the Project Lead. They asked me to climb on their motorcycle and they blindfolded me.”
He was then taken away from the community to a camp located deep in the forest.
What followed, he said, was an experience that left him uncertain whether he would return home alive.
“When they brought me to the compound far inside the forest, at the entrance I saw sticks decorated with freshly cut human heads. At that moment, I knew that anything could happen to me,” Tardzenyuy recounted.
He said the fighters seized his phone before a young member of the group chained his hands and legs.
He was subsequently beaten and repeatedly threatened with death.
According to Tardzenyuy, a man whom the fighters referred to as their “Witchwitchy king” also lived within the camp.
He described the man as a spiritual figure respected by the fighters and believed to prepare charms for them.
“He was treated with a lot of respect in the camp. I was made to understand that he could decide who should be killed. I was chained, beaten and constantly thinking that I could be the next person,” Tardzenyuy said.
For five days, his fate remained uncertain.
During questioning, he repeatedly explained that his presence in the community was humanitarian and that he was not working on behalf of the Government.
“I kept explaining that I was only there to save the lives of pregnant women. I told them I was not working with the Government and that our work was simply to make sure women affected by the conflict could have access to maternal healthcare,” he said.
After five days in captivity, Tardzenyuy was released following the payment of a ransom by his family.
But the experience had already changed his thinking.
While being held in the forest, he had decided that, if he survived, he would never return to Matoh.
Cameroonian humanitarian worker, Achileus Tardzenyuy
He also resolved to abandon his responsibilities with the Maternal Health Mobile Hub.
“I told myself that if I left that place alive, I would never return to Matoh. I had already made plans in my mind to stop everything connected to the Mobile Hub because I felt I had done enough and I did not want to lose my life,” he recounted.
That decision, however, lasted only a few days.
Shortly after his release, Tardzenyuy received another emergency call concerning a pregnant woman experiencing a complicated delivery.
The call forced him to confront the same danger from which he had just escaped.
For him, the choice was between staying away because of what had happened to him or responding to a woman whose condition required urgent assistance.
He chose to return.
“Days after I was released, I received another call about a complicated delivery. I could not allow fear to stop me from rescuing a pregnant woman and saving a life,” Tardzenyuy said.
“I had promised myself that I would never go back, but when that call came, I started thinking about the woman. I knew that if we did nothing, the consequences could be very serious. So I resumed the work.”
Tardzenyuy subsequently continued working with the Maternal Health Mobile Hub, supporting pregnant women whose access to maternal healthcare had been affected by insecurity, difficult roads and disruptions caused by the conflict.
His experience highlights some of the risks faced by humanitarian workers operating in areas where armed groups are active and where even the provision of basic health services can expose workers to suspicion and danger.
For pregnant women living in such communities, emergencies are made more dangerous by the uncertainty surrounding movement.
A woman experiencing obstructed labour or another severe complication cannot necessarily wait until security conditions improve before seeking treatment.
It is this reality, Tardzenyuy said, that made it difficult for him to walk away from the work.
“I was afraid. What happened to me was something I never imagined I would experience. But the women were still there. The conflict had not stopped their pregnancies, and it had not stopped complications from happening,” he said.
For Tardzenyuy, surviving five days in captivity could easily have marked the end of his humanitarian engagement in Matoh.
Instead, it became a test of whether fear would determine what happened next.
He returned to the same communities, continued responding to emergency calls and resumed efforts to connect pregnant women affected by the conflict with maternal healthcare.
“I realised that courage does not mean that you are not afraid,” he said. “I was afraid to return. But I knew that there were women whose lives could depend on someone answering that call.”