As conflicts surge around the world, including in Cameroon, where at least 6,500 people have been killed during a decade-long separatist conflict in the country’s English-speaking regions, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, the Most Reverend Sarah Mullally, has urged Anglicans in the Central African nation to remain steadfast in their faith, assuring them that “God sees your struggles and is with you.”
Preaching during a Eucharist at Bishopcourt in Douala on Sunday, August 2, Archbishop Sarah, who is on a five-day pastoral visit to Cameroon, said she had come to the country “as a pastor and shepherd” to assure Christians that “you are not forgotten.”
Addressing a congregation of parishioners, bishops and clergy from across the Anglican Diocese of Cameroon, alongside government officials and traditional leaders, the Archbishop urged worshippers to place their hope in God, who sees and knows them.
“Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth,” she declared.
Besides the Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North Region, Cameroon continues to grapple with a deadly separatist conflict in its English-speaking North West and South West regions, with civilians bearing the brunt of the violence.
An estimated 1,500 to 2,000 people have been killed in the Far North since the cross-border spillover of Boko Haram attacks intensified around 2014. Meanwhile, at least 6,500 people, including civilians and military personnel, have died in the decade-long separatist conflict in the English-speaking regions, according to reports by organizations including the International Crisis Group and Amnesty International.
Drawing from the biblical account of Jacob wrestling with the angel of God in Genesis 32:22–31, Archbishop Sarah said the passage speaks to the struggles of God’s people “in times of war and displacement, wilderness and exile.”
“God sees your struggle. When it feels like the eyes of the world are turned away, God looks upon you. When it feels like you are fighting a battle in complex circumstances and with unclear gains or losses, God is with you. God wrestles and struggles with you in the darkness, until the blessing comes,” the Anglican leader said.
From Douala, Archbishop Sarah continued her visit to the political capital, Yaounde, where she visited Saint Thérèse Anglican Parish in Yégassi, near Okola, before meeting with the Prime Minister, Chief Dr. Joseph Dion Ngute on Monday, August 3, 2026.
The visit to Cameroon is the second leg of Archbishop Sarah’s pastoral tour of the Anglican Church of the Province of West Africa at the invitation of the Primate of West Africa, the Most Revd Dr. Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith. The 10-day visit, which concludes in Yaounde on Tuesday, August 4, began in Ghana last weekend.
