“There was never a moment we were not running”: Women are paying the ultimate price in Cameroon’s armed conflict
- The Anglophone conflict in Cameroon is taking a mental health toll on victims of gender-based violence, revealing the infrastructure and policy gaps of an ailing mental healthcare system.
TW: This story contains references to sexual violence.
Image description: A woman with translucent skin revealing storm clouds, and a dress depicting a scene with a soldier bearing arms. The background shows a serene landscape, contrasting with the war scene depicted in the dress. The smoke from the scene extends beyond the dress.
It was a deceptively sunny Monday in Cameroon’s embattled northwest region. The streets lay eerily silent—shops shuttered, taxis absent. It was no ordinary day off but a “ghost town” enforced by Anglophone separatists in their war against the Francophone-dominated government. Into this tense calm stepped Claudia, 21, on a simple mission to buy sanitary pads. Little did she know that her mundane errand would spiral into a horrific ordeal and lifelong psychosocial battles.
“Suddenly, there were gunshots, and I was going back to my house. I bumped into them, and they asked me what I was doing outside,” Claudia recalls. “The sanitary pad was visible, and they could all see that’s what took me out.”
The armed men, unconvinced, blindfolded Claudia and whisked her away on a motorbike. Thus began a harrowing five-hour journey from Bamenda town into an unknown forest.
“One of the boys started making sexual advances at me,” Claudia recounts. “ When I resisted, he used a cutlass on my head and pushed me to the floor.”
This was followed by torture and gang rape at the hands of her abductors.
“I tried resisting with my hands, then the other boy came and stood on my hands such that I could not resist,” Claudia says in tears. “He forced his way into me, and when he was done, he stood on my hands while the other boy also forced his way in.” For two days, Claudia was more or less a sex toy in the hands of her abductors. “I was feeling so much pain.’’
This experience has traumatised her to date.
According to the February 2024 situation report of Cameroon by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), most survivors of gender-based violence are exposed to psychosocial impacts like isolation, rejection, mental disorder, and suicidal thoughts. Although some survivors receive support from non-profit organisations, the report indicates that harmful coping mechanisms can lead to devastating consequences like substance abuse and survival sex.
Since 2016, when the crisis in the West African country erupted, cases of gender-based violence have skyrocketed. Between February and December 2020, the UN documented about 4300 cases of gender-based violence in Cameroon’s conflict regions. Protection Cluster, UNFPA May 2023 key findings revealed that GBV remains a widespread human rights violation against women and girls, including emotional violence, domestic violence, and sexual violence.
Stella Eyabi, a mental health professional based in Buea, the capital of Anglophone’s southwest region, explains how people are prone to mental health issues in times of emergencies and crises. She notes the effects of the ongoing armed conflict on mental health disorders.
“Since the Anglophone crisis started, there has been an unending cycle of mental health crises. So, the effects are likely to continue even afterward,” she explains.
Eyabi, who is also the founder of DIBA Mental Health Counseling and Consultations, fears that recurrent traumatic events can result in violent behaviour and sometimes suicide. “It is not just about the mind, but how the mind can affect the body. One in five individuals will experience trauma,” she says. “The rate of mental health disorders can evolve and lead to violent behaviours and feelings of worthlessness and increase [the] rate in crime, prostitution, and low literacy levels. If care is not taken, these traumatic events could lead to suicide.’’
A 2022 report by Voice of America shows a 100% increase in the number of Cameroonians seeking mental health care. Among the reasons for this unusual spike are the Anglophone armed conflict and the Boko Haram clashes in Cameroon’s northern border. Despite this increase, however, there are only two government-owned hospitals that handle mental health issues in the political and economic capitals of Yaoundé and Douala respectively. Added to this, Cameroon has no mental health policy in place.
Fabiola, 24 is experiencing mental stress, nightmares, and panic attacks resulting from multiple displacements and exposure to horror events. After seeking refuge in the bush for weeks, Fabiola and her mother returned to find their house in ashes in their native Ndop, in the crisis-affected northwest region of Cameroon. It was the beginning of a new era for them, and they had no choice but to move to Douala, on the French side of Cameroon, some 320.2 km away from home.
Fabiola and her mother are part of the over 638,000 internally displaced people as a result of the armed conflict. It is also estimated by the Human Rights Watch that about 1.7 million people in these regions need humanitarian aid.
“These experiences are damaging…. wounds that can never be cured,” says Fabiola. “There was never a moment when we were not running. While in the village in Ndop [government forces] came to the market square and started shooting. When they were gone, we only saw dead bodies. As I speak to you now, I still have the images fresh in mind.”
In her host community in Douala, she notes there is no safe space nor an ear to listen to her plight without judging her. According to Fabiola, the people in Douala do not grasp the effects of the wars because they are directly unaffected by it. She is now a shadow of herself and rarely finds someone who believes her story. She keeps having nightmares and has lost interest in many social activities.
Fabiola likens her situation to perpetual wounds, and the only ray of hope for her is her Christian faith believing that only God will help her out. “Here in Douala, there are no gunshots, but I keep hearing gunshots. I overreact when something happens, and everyone thinks I am dramatic,” she says.
She continues, “Sometimes I cry, especially when all those images of dead people come to my mind. I am usually lost in thoughts.”
While gender-based violence cases continue to prevail in these crisis-affected regions, victims are receiving little or no psychological care or mental health support, as reported by Relief Web. There are equally not enough structures to help subsidise the cost of counselling and psychological therapy.
This is true for Claudia who has struggled with accessing mental health support after her rape ordeal. Though she wishes to get herself a counsellor, Claudia cannot meet the monthly cost dimension of $100.. She is now battling with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is negatively affecting her social life and education.
“The armed conflict has led to many emergency humanitarian programs meeting the physical needs of conflict-affected persons amid dwindling resources. There has been little focus in also ensuring the mental wellness of victims, making mental health one of the most neglected needs of IDPs during the crisis,” Eyabi tells Minority Africa.
“Mental health is not just a linear process like physical needs, it requires procedure and time factor to help people regain their mental wellbeing.”
Evert Ngefor, the counselling psychologist at PsyEduc Global Bamenda, explains that the mental state of most survivors of GBV is unstable, and they need to go through mental health support to become stable before being able to seek justice, which is a whole process on its own.
“Seeking justice for them is however not easy as it requires a whole procedure and a good mental state. If getting their basic needs is not easy, seeking justice is far-fetched,” Ngefor says.
Though she can not vividly remember the faces of the two boys that raped her, Claudia however hopes that those boys will one day be brought to book, one way or the other.
“I feel anxious each time I see a motorcycle. I feel horrible each time I see a dark young man in locks. It reminds me of the rape scene,” Claudia says.
“Life has not been easy,” she continues with a timid smile, “but I’m grateful that I survived it.”
Edited/Reviewed by PK Cross, Caleb Okereke, Samuel Banjoko and Uzoma Ihejirika and Kenneth Awom
