NEVER THE SAME AGAIN: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE ANGLOPHONE CRISIS

This is July 2^nd 2019, we are sitting in the living room watching a movie. Suddenly, we hear gunshots coming from outside and we all lie on the floor. Looking at each other with fright, we listen for further noise. We hear loud knocking on the door and a voice “wonna open this door’. I am on the floor holding my three months old baby, with my younger brothers and my mother, my heart pounding as I press my palm over my daughter’s mouth to keep her cries from being heard. As we lie on the floor, my mother indicates using sign language for my twin brothers to go to the room. They start crawling on their bellies towards the room when we hear another gunshot at close range and the glass of the main door shatters into pieces. My mother screams

“JESUS’” and rushes towards us, pushing us behind her. “Wonna open this door”, the voice comes again. “if we open this door by force, all man go die so wonna better openam.” One of my younger brothers moves to the door and opens it. 

Three boys with guns force themselves into our house, pushing my younger brother to the floor. The next two boys that follow start kicking and beating my brother on the floor. His twin brother goes to plead with the boys but he is equally pushed to the floor and both of them are beaten. They scream in pain as they are being beaten and kicked all over. I am watching on my knees as I weep, unable to move. The other three boys go around the house scattering things searching for money and other valuables. They collect our phones and laptops. The other two continue beating my brothers as my mother and I are pleading for them to stop. “we di sleep for cold for fight for wonna, you di watch TV then di cover blanket nor, today wonna two go join we for bush” one of them said as he pulls my younger brothers by their legs out of the house. 

My mother who was lying down and begging, goes on her knees and creeps towards them pleading. 0ne of the boys turns in anger and hits her with an iron bar he has holding beneath her right eye, on her cheek. She screams but ignores the pain and blood oozing from the wound and continues pleading for her sons. At this point, my brothers and I are crying on our knees begging. The other boys see the cut and blood then start shouting at the boy who hit her. In that confusion and argument, they throw all what they had collected from us and flee. My mother collapses minutes later and is rushed to the hospital by our neighbor.

Flash-forward to today, my mother has a scar below her right eye, on her cheek, she is battling with High blood pressure, one of my younger brothers has severe side pains due to the torture and has to be on painkillers to help him with the pain when it comes up, we all have to deal with the trauma of that experience of having to see our loved ones in severe pain, we live in a rented apartment in Yaounde and have to deal with the fear of going back and reliving this incident.

Laurell K. Hamilton says ‘there are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.’ I am calling on the government and separatist fighters to put an end to the crisis because it has devastating consequences. The trauma the victims go through are deeper than what we think. We need healing.

I am FON RITA BIH, a young peace builder and advocate.