THE PRICE WE ARE PAYING!

Dear STEEMIT space Community friends, today I would like to share with you, some of the untold experiences the Crisis in my Country Cameroon has on the people of the south west and north west regions which is the English speaking part of Country. The Crisis that started in 2016, with the English speaking part of the Country struggling to breakaway to gain autonomy has for over close to Eight years brought lots of negative impact on the economy, human resource and lots of suffering to the civilian population. Businesses, Education, daily hussles, health, etc have all been jeopardized.

Infact businesses have been grounded and life have become so difficult for the layman, and to have meal a day is not easy to come by. The lockdown/ghost towns have also caused dwindling businesses to extinguish. Meanwhile the struggling ones can't even pay the huge loans taken from the dying banks. The prices of commodities are steadily at the rise thus making it difficult for people to afford a balance diet, thus causing lots of health complications.

For close to eight years Education has been a shadow of itself. Most of the children have been denied their fundamental human right, the right to education. Children who cannot afford to move to big towns or even the French speaking part where there's relative calm and security are forced to stay at home due to the insecurity. And schools that try to break the odd.
Schools who dare violate separatist fighters orders risked paying a huge price for that. Either the children or teachers are picked up, and a ransom paid to secure their release or at times lives are taken. Just of recent a catholic boarding school in Bafut, Bamenda witnessed the kidnapping of the boarders, and taken to an unknown location, and when a staff when in search and to know the terms of the kidnap and he too was ceased and kept. How grotesque you might imagine! Imagine the fear, sometimes in the midst of exchanges of gun firing between the separatist fighters and the military! In this incidents some children usually get killed in the crossed fire by stray or targeted bullets.

The economy is dwindling; big companies like palmol, CDC, Ndu Tea Estate, Ndawara Estate, etc are today grounded and workers have become jobless or remained unemployed with no source of livelihood. Huge sums of millions that use to come from these Companies no longer come, thus rendering the economy, the shadow of itself. Retrenched workers can't provide for their families again, and worst of
all the continuous threats to their lives make them live in perpetual fear of the unknown.

And the daily hussles that one used to see is dying down at a geometric proportion due to insecurity. People don't more move freely, and are always in fear of the unknown. Either one
is caught in an area by mass arrests by the military or separatists attack or kidnaps. Fear of being caught in the cross fire during an impromptu exchanges by the opposing parties. And infact everyday has its own tale to tell.
During ghost towns the streets are empty, not even a chicken or goat can be found on the streets or the quarters as everyone remain indoors due to the unknown.
Recently at Nkwen market, a locality in Bamenda lll Sub division-Mezam, Bamenda City the regional headquarters of the north west region, an improvised explosive device ( IED ), was detonated killing a young woman in her thirties, and injuring Six people including an eleven month old baby. This woman by name Chung Juliet is a native of Mboh-Oku, in Bui division of the north west, crisis striken Region. And is a mother of a five years old child. She had left Oku to seek refuge in Bamenda, due the crisis and as her area in Oku, is considered as the red zone, just to find her own death in the town she thought was safer. Her only crime was that she came out on a ghost town to look for food for the family. With no permanent well paid job she did just daily hussles and caught herself in the web of the unforeseen. She was killed by the locally made bomb that was detonated while she was there.

The health facilities that used to carter for the sick have either been closed or just abandoned due to insecurity. This has deprived the civilian population the right to health which is their fundamental human right. Doctors have had to run away due to threats to their lives, leaving the hospital behind without staff. While some even lost their lives just because they were on duty trying to safe a life. In such pathetic circumstances many had fled to more secured areas for their own safety. Due to these irregularities patients have often died without medication or even proper care.

Today ends a two week lockdown that made life very unbearable for the folks and halted children from resuming back to school. The back to school that was scheduled for the 9/9/2024 was marred by a two week ghost towns that ends today, and schools in the Anglophone section of the Country can only resume effectively on 24/09/2024, considering that Monday 23/9/2024 is a normal ghost towns day that the separatist fighters instituted in the entire Anglophone zones of the Country.

I hope this enlightens somebody! And thanks for reading to the end, and hope it enriches someone's curiosity! I also implore on my STEEMIT Space Community friends to join me pray for a dialogue that will bring lasting solutions to this untold suffering that is rendering the Masses unable to support themselves and each other.