Cameroon missionaries abducted and released in ‘message to Pope’

Pope Leo travelled to Bamenda, capital of the Northwest region, during his visit to Cameroon, and told a congregation: ‘The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy, yet a lifetime is often not enough to rebuild.’

Five Catholic missionaries abducted in Cameroon’s war-torn Northwest region on 19 June were forced to appeal to the Pope in a video before they were released 24 hours later.

Separatist militants seized two priests, two nuns and the 84-year-old Br Huub Welters, a Dutch Mill Hill missionary, while they were returning from an ordination ceremony in Fundong. Welters was previously kidnapped in April last year.

The kidnappers released a video showing the captives addressing Pope Leo XIV, complaining that the authorities in Cameroon had ignored his message of peace during his recent visit.

“We were not taken for ransom payment,” one nun said in French. “We were taken to send a message to the Pope, to tell him that the peace message he brought to Ambazonia hasn’t been implemented.”

Ambazonia is the name separatists use for the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions they seek to secede. 

The “Anglophone crisis”, rooted in Cameroon’s colonial partition between Britain and France, escalated in 2016 after the government’s violent response to peaceful protests by English-speaking lawyers and teachers. Since then, the civil war has killed over 6,500 people and displaced roughly one million internally.

Pope Leo travelled to Bamenda, capital of the Northwest region, during his apostolic journey to Cameroon. He told a cheering congregation: “The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy, yet a lifetime is often not enough to rebuild.”

Outside Bamenda’s cathedral, the Pope released seven doves representing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. While six flew away, the Pope’s dove – labelled “Piety” – flew 16 kilometres back to its cage at the Bambui Seminary.

Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda later said that this was a spiritual sign that Cameroonians, like the dove, will “find their way back to peace and unity”.

Local Church leaders have announced a number of initiatives designed to ensure the Pope’s words are not wasted, despite the apparent indifference of the authorities.

During their recent plenary assembly in Yaoundé, the bishops resolved to publish the Pope’s speeches in both official languages as a “constant reminder” of his message and established a study group to draft a specific roadmap to peace for the conflict-affected regions.

Recognising that violence has left a generation uneducated, the bishops committed to expanding safe educational spaces and preventing youth recruitment into armed groups. Youth chaplaincies will run dialogue sessions to dismantle regional biases. Justice and Peace commissions will oversee these initiatives across all dioceses.

Archbishop Nkea emphasised that the Anglophone regions do not need the “fragile quiet of ceasefires” but rather “peace poured in concrete: peace that can be walked on, schooled in, and eaten at night without fear”.

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