Psychological care urged to be taken in Cameroon’s separatist conflict.
Crisis in the anglophone regions since 2016 has caused an unprecedented spiral violence and an up growing number in need of psychological care which unfortunately is not effective. About 3500 people dead,700000 displaced, 238 villages attacked with some completely burned. A situation that causes mental and emotional injuries both on the population and the armed forces.
» I went to Bamenda in August for holidays but the trauma I had because of gunshots is still in my mind. Even now that I am in Yaounde I still dream of it, its like I’m not secured and I can’t just imagine the situation of those that have been living in those regions since the conflict began » says Alexia Mafor.
» the trauma is just too much, says an internally displaced. Youths are dying, elderly people dying even old mothers that cannot run away when the guns are being shot. There are mental patients every day because of this crisis »
A situation that also affects the armed forces who had never been before in such conflicts talkless of how to manage the population in such circumstances like was the case in Buea on the 14th of October where, a soldier of the gendarmerie Achille Mvogo opened gun shoots on a vehicle driving a 5 years old girl to school. She lost her life and eventually he was also killed by the angry mob. Such an accidental shooting could welly be related to mental exhaustion or a psychological trauma that our soldiers face in this conflict. How many soldiers saw their comrades being killed in front of them talkless of families both francophones and anglophones seing their children killed?
A rapid solution should then be found in this crisis because at this rate, people won’t only die of weapons, but also of stress and mental injuries.
