By Arison Tamfu
In the early morning in Buea, the chief town of Cameroon’s war-torn English-speaking region of the Southwest, 18-year-old Carine and her younger sister, Judith, are getting ready for school. But for these teenagers, it has been a long time coming.
Judith is 15 but is still in primary school. Carine was supposed to be in university, but she just started secondary school. They are among hundreds of thousands of children in the country’s two English-speaking regions of the Northwest and Southwest, who have resumed school after seven years.
Carine and Judith had to stay at home since 2017 due to a persistent crisis in the regions, where separatists have been clashing with government forces in a bid to secede from the French-majority Cameroon and create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia”.
“I feel so happy I am able to attend school after five years. This is a dream come true,” Carine said, asking for her family name and school not to be published.
Judith and Carine fled the locality of Ekona in the region with their family in 2022 amid renewed fighting and relocated to Buea. Still reeling from her ordeal in the war-torn zone, Judith said she felt especially fortunate to go to school because some of her friends have not been able to study due to the conflict.
“Running up and down from bush to bush was difficult. Now I am focused on my studies to fulfill my dream of becoming a medical doctor,” said Judith who also asked for her family name not to be mentioned.
Fighting between government forces and armed separatists has made it too dangerous for formal lessons in the Anglophone regions of the Central African nation. Separatists enforced a school boycott in the troubled regions since 2016 to protest against what they described as educational injustices against English-speakers. In 2020, UNICEF reported that the school boycott affected more than 600,000 children and forced over 4,000 schools to close.
Now, schools are gradually reopening in safer areas of the regions.
“In 2022, we expected 429 secondary schools to reopen, but only 233 functioned. In 2023, almost all the schools reopened, and this year, attendance has improved significantly,” said Hannah Mbua Etonde, chief of secondary education in the Southwest region.
“We are seeing students coming back to school in their numbers; many schools are also gradually reopening. The situation is generally improving,” added Adolph Lele Lafrique, governor of the Northwest region.
The armed conflict is not over, but some separatist leaders are now encouraging children to return to school, saying a boycott is no longer a weapon of their struggle for independence. Parents here said they’re breathing a sigh of relief after the call for school resumption by the separatist leaders.
Augustine, whose name has been changed for safety reasons, teared up thinking of the bombing that leveled his son’s primary school in Batibo, a locality in the Northwest region but is determined to ensure the eighth-grader continues his studies. “My son’s school is not there anymore, but he has started school here in Buea. The most important thing is for our children to learn,” he said.
“My humble plea as a parent to the administration is that security should be guaranteed 100 percent, 24/7 for our kids to go to school,” said Michael Njie whose child started school in 2022 after spending four years at home.
“We just want to learn. Let them keep the guns away from schools and students,” Judith said.
IDPs struggle to continue schooling
As early as 6:30 am on the day of school reopening, 10-year-old Kelsy Shinyuy was already on her way to meet her new teachers and classmates in Foumban, chief-town of Noun division in the Francophone part of Cameroon.
“I am very happy because I have not been to school for long,” she said.
Shinyuy and her family fled their home in Kumbo in the Northwest to take refuge in Foumban, located some 100 km from Kumbo. She was finally able to restart school at Saint Joseph Bilingual School of Foumban.
Her mother, Lidwina Limunyuy was very excited that she managed to resend her child to school, although for lack of money, the other two younger brothers of Shinyuy have to keep staying at home.
“We went through hardship. In fact, we are lucky to be alive,” Limunyuy said.
“The situation is sad. We have asked all the school authorities to admit all the internally displaced children. We are very focused to make sure they go to school hitch-free,” said Amidou Mbouombouo, divisional delegate of the secondary education ministry in Noun.
Magdaline Abongmbuh, a teacher at Government Bilingual High School of Foumban, said 33 IDP students registered in her class.
“Some of the students came to school without uniforms and books and school fees. When I asked them to go home and dress properly before coming to school, they burst into tears and insisted that they are ready to study in any condition,” said Abongmbuh. “They cried, ‘Madam, we have suffered a lot and we want to go to school’.”
Local elites make their contribution too. Members of Bamoun Kingdom, a major chiefdom in Noun, visited displaced families before school resumption to donate learning material.
To provide IDPs with sustainable sources of income, the sultan of Bamoum has made available 600 hectares of farmland, according to Inoussa Ngoupayou, first deputy to the sultan.
Humanitarian agencies are also taking actions to help, however these efforts are not enough to meet the overwhelming needs of the IDPs.
On this first day of school, Shinyuy was already making new friends. All children have been instructed to be kind to their mates coming from crisis-hit regions, school headmistress Caroline Yaah said.
“I will study hard to become a doctor,” Shinyuy said.
