The Catholic church in Cameroon is mourning the death of the parish priest of Bomaka, a district of Buea, the capital of the English-speaking region of South-West Cameroon, who was killed on July 22 by unidentified individuals. Neither the Cameroonian authorities nor the Catholic hierarchy expressed an opinion on the circumstances of the death of the priest. Travel is difficult in English-speaking Cameroon, according to several Catholics interviewed by AFP.
As reported by mattersindia.com, a communication officer of the Catholic Church in Yaoundé, specifying that the perpetrators of the murder remain unknown and that the body is mutilated remarked that “We have received photographs of the body of the deceased priest, Alexander Sob Nougi.” Security in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions, the north-west and south-west, has deteriorated considerably. Fighting became daily between the security forces and armed separatists demanding the creation of an independent English-speaking state.
The Catholic Church is the only actor capable of “promoting dialogue” between the insurgents and the government, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) research centre in April. It represents almost a third of the Cameroonian population, according to the ICG, which deplored the Catholic Church’s “divergent positions” on the Anglophone question and invited it to “overcome its divisions and display its neutrality”.
Source: www.mattersindia.com
