Cameroon’s secessionist conflict is forcing hundreds of thousands of students out of education

YAoundE, Cameroon (AP) – Jane Ndamei’s dream of becoming a doctor almost cost her five years ago.

The 20-year-old student from the south-west region of Cameroon was writing his Grade 12 exam when he suddenly heard gunshots. Before long, armed men came to the school, forcing Ndamei and his peers to flee the exam room.

“It was the sound of death and I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I prayed silently and performed a miracle,” he recalled.

Ndamei, who was 15 at the time, was one of 2.8 million children in West and Central Africa whose education has been halted by violent conflicts in recent years, according to the United Nations. More than 14,000 schools have been closed due to violence and insecurity in 24 countries in West and Central Africa since June.

As of 2023, the separatist crisis in western Cameroon and incursions by the Boko Haram extremist group in the north left 1.4 million school-age children in need of education, according to a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council. The UN said that in 2019, the year Ndamei’s school was attacked, 855,000 children were out of school in north-west and south-west Cameroon, where different armed groups targeted schools.

The Central African country has been wracked by war since English-speaking separatists launched an uprising in 2017, with the stated goal of breaking away from the majority French-speaking region and establishing an independent, English-speaking country.

The government accused the separatists of brutalizing the English-speaking population. The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced more than 760,000 people, according to the International Crisis Group.

Since the start of the conflict, opposition forces have initiated and enforced school boycotts as a means of pressuring the government for political recognition.

Opposition forces, opposed to the French-speaking education system organized by the central government, have killed and kidnapped students and teachers, burned and looted school buildings, and threatened families to keep their children from studying, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

“The deliberate targeting of schools and the denial of education due to conflict is a tragedy,” said Hasane Hamadou, NRC’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa.

“Every day a child is taken out of school is a day stolen from their future and the future of their communities,” added Hamadou.

Ndamei had to move to a French-speaking, western region of the country and live with family members to continue his education. She is now enrolled in a nursing program at the university.

“I had the privilege of staying with relatives in regions that are not affected by the crisis, but many of my classmates did not get this opportunity,” Ndamei told the Associated Press.

He said many are now young mothers.

“You see 11-year-old, 12-year-old children sitting at home, you don’t know that they are pregnant, their future is disappearing,” said Ndamei. “The parents are frustrated, the kids are frustrated.”

Nelson Tabuwe from the town of Batibo in the north-west said his three children – aged 10, 12 and 15 years old – have been out of school for about seven years because of the secession dispute.

“My last child, Jude Ngam, wanted to be a mechanical engineer. Her older sister, Janet, always wanted to be a doctor, and my older daughter, Claire, always told me that she wanted to be a teacher,” Tabuwe told the Associated Press.

The 61-year-old man and his family fled the separatist war in their hometown and fled to Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. The adjustment has been difficult, the whole family is cramped in one room with little money and Tabuwe has not been able to find a stable job in the capital.

“We came here with nothing,” said Tabuwe.

Since he was displaced due to violence, he said, it has become very difficult to support his family. Tabuwe’s three children, who have not yet studied, have to help their parents in making money.

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