Originally Published on www.omiworld.org
Northern Cameroon near Nigeria is also a victim of
the abuses of the Islamist Boko Haram. This past September, Oblate Ferdinand Owono
Ndih, head of the Yves Tabar pre-novitiate in Mokolo shares on the
experience of living in this situation. Missionary Oblates join in thought and
prayers with our brothers and sisters. Missionary Oblates have significant OMI presence in Cameroon.
I had to quickly get to Mokolo where the situation is not at all
happy because of the Islamic Boko Haram sect. It is spreading terror, and life
is becoming unbearable.
Tomorrow we will bury a catechist who was beheaded on Sunday as
he walked home after presiding over prayer in his community in the absence of a
priest. That same Sunday, the chapel at Ldoubam (a few kilometers from the
border near Mokolo) was burned and a village destroyed by a hundred individuals
armed “to the teeth”. They opened fire on a population that was taking its
Sunday walk in peace. In the disturbance, a policeman and a young teacher fresh
out of Normal School in Maroua were beheaded. It’s horrible what we are
experiencing in this part of the national triangle.
Thank God, we have an army (BIR: Rapid Intervention Battalion)
that gives the best of itself and achieves significant victories, but given the
extent of the border, it cannot be everywhere. In short, the situation is sad
and the cost of living is undergoing a significant surge.
Here at the pre-novitiate, we will have 16 young men; 10 are
already here, but 6 from Nigeria are not here yet because Cameroon has closed
its border in the north because of the BH sect and in the south because of the
Ebola disease. What’s to be done, I do not know. Currently we have started a
program with those who are here until things become clearer.
(OMI France,
October 2014)
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