Originally published at The Crux
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YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo in Cameroon’s war-torn North West region has denounced a decade of violence that has plagued Cameroon’s two English-speaking North West and South West regions.
The two regions have since 2016 been embroiled in conflict, with separatists fighting to break away from the rest of the country and form a new nation to be called Ambazonia.
The crisis was triggered by a harsh government crackdown on teachers and lawyers from the two regions who were protesting the use of French in Anglo-Saxon schools and courts. But Cameroon’s English-speaking minorities have always voiced historical grievances, complaining about the systematic erosion of their culture and way of life by the predominantly French-speaking government.
Ten years of fighting have left at least 6500 people dead, and more than a million forced to flee from their homes.
In his Lenten letter, Nkuo laments that the conflict, marked by killings, abductions, and a new crisis of human trafficking, risks becoming “normalized” among a suffering population.
He said his diocese in particular has “endured ten painful years of conflict, fear, displacement, uncertainty, and deep sorrow,” and expressed fear that war could become normalized.
In his pastoral letter, titled
