With a seminarian killed in Cameroon, the Bishop of Mamfe Diocese has called on the government to stop wiping out its young people and seek dialogue to end the crisis in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. According to a statement signed by Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua of the Archdiocese of Bamenda, the young seminarian called Gérard Anjiangwe, 19 years old, was killed by a group of soldiers on 4 October in front of the parish Church of Saint Theresa of Bamessing, a village near Ndop in Ngo-Ketunjia. The Bishop Andrew Nkea has also urged young people in the Anglophone regions to embrace dialogue. Eye witnesses said that the soldiers arrived at the parish and started shooting and in the process sent parishioners scampering into the Sacristy where they barricaded themselves. Gérard remained praying the rosary outside as soldiers approached him. He was then shot three times in the neck.
As reported by Vatican news, Cameroon’s Bishop of Mamfe Diocese, Andrew Nkea remarked that “This is the cream of the country you are wiping out like that. It is not some foreign country you are fighting or some foreign enemy. These are children of the house. Instead of taking guns and wiping them out, look for a way to dialogue because only dialogue will lead us onto the way of peace. My message to the young people who are in the bush fighting and attacking soldiers is that they should also look for a means to dialogue.”
The new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet expressed worry over the worsening security situation in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions.
