It’s been almost three years now since I got abducted by some so called separatists fighters and it was the worst experience of my life. This was around November of 2021 when I just got into the university.
So on this faithful day I left school and boarded taxi back home, my school was way out of town so it was a long drive back home. Just before I could reach home our taxi and other vehicles were intercepted by gun men. They looked very angry and firing gunshots at will, they took our bags and brutally forced us out of our taxi.
For a moment we knew they were going to kill us right there but then they took us to this uncompleted building and ask for our phones and ID cards which we gave them and then they ask those of us who attend government schools to identify ourselves that’s when I knew I was in big trouble. They told us if anyone was to lie they’ll shoot them on the spot and it was so unfortunate for me cause I was with all my school belongings. They fiche us out and we all amounted to 5, three boys and two girls and then things went bad when the military was alerted.
When the military arrived they just started shooting indiscriminately so they quickly boarded us on bikes and the whole thing felt like a dream, I could see bullets flying around like I was in a war film and at a certain point they asked us to come down from the bikes and start crawling on the ground. The other guys succeeded in distracting the military by firing back so they finally escaped with us to a save point where the gave us the opportunity to call our families and tell them that we’ve been abducted. I couldn’t call my mom cause I knew she’ll go crazy so I called my brother instead and explained to him so he knows how to break the news to my mom, dad and the rest of the family.
Let me give a little background on what’s happening in country so you understand the course of all this, am from Cameroon and part of the country that is The North west and the Southwest regions have been in a civil war for over 8 yrs now cause the want to be a separate country of their own. My country is a bilingual country( French and English) so the English speaking part of the country who is the minority believe they’re been marginalized by the French majority hence the want nothing to do with government nor do the want government schools or anything related to government. That’s one of the reasons we were kidnapped.
So after we made calls to our respective families we were blind folded and asked to say our respective schools and names on camera so they can send online. They couldn’t stop telling us they were going to kill us, some of them just had fun putting their pistols in our mouths and it was traumatizing. Some moments later a car arrived and we were boarded into still blindfolded and we had a long drive to their camp where we saw hell.
The moment we got to their camp they took us to their boss, he asked us to sit on the floor and ordered one of his boys to beat us under our feet using a machete, never in my life have I felt that kind of physical pain before, my feet was swollen and I couldn’t even walk. It didn’t end with the beatings they started with the psychological torture, the said they’ll naked us the next day and post on social media then kill us afterwards and bury in their backyard.
I couldn’t sleep that night cause it was very cold and I couldn’t stop thinking about dying, the next day they didn’t naked us though instead they said we were to pay very huge amount of ransoms, money that my family couldn’t even afford in a year or even two so I just knew I was going to stay there. While been there they didn’t give us the opportunity to call our families again so we had no idea what arrangements they were making.
I stayed there for four days with the others in very horrible conditions and been beaten over and over again. On the last day when we were finally released it still felt like I dream and I was lucky to leave with my ID but all my school belongings and phone was confiscated. I only cared about my life then. I can still remember the joy in my mom’s face when I came back home, she had been crying for days and grew pale, they were all so happy to have me back home.
I stop schooling afterwards cause of the financial challenges it caused and I needed time to heal from the trauma. Glad am alive today to share my story with you guys and also pray nobody experiences this. Thank you for taking out time to read.