'Worse than death': Surviving sexual violence in Cameroon's anglophone crisis.
Sandra* finds it difficult to talk about what she suffered at the hands of Cameroonian soldiers. At 16 years old, she was stopped at a police checkpoint and asked for her national identity card, which isn't issued until age 18. After failing to produce one, the soldiers abducted Sandra and took her to a forest far from her neighbourhood.
“They raped me brutally to the extent that I could not even feel my own body. They turned me into a playing ground and treated me like dirt,” Sandra says. “What they did to me is worse than death.”
Sexual and gender-based violence has been pervasive in Cameroon's Northwest and Southwest regions since separatist fighters launched their armed rebellion against government forces six years ago, demanding independence for the country's English-speaking minority. RFI spoke to survivors still living with the fallout.
Clarisse* was also raped, but by suspected separatist fighters. An armed group stormed her neighbourhood in Kumbo in Cameroon’s Northwest region. A loud noise outside woke her up before four men entered her home.
“They raped me in turns. It was so painful,” Clarisse tells RFI.
Now the mother of twins, she says: “I don’t know their father, and it’s very unlikely I will ever know him because they were all masked. But these children are my consolation. I have learned to look at them with love.”
Weapon of war
According to the International Crisis Group, the conflict in Cameroon's anglophone regions has killed over 6,000 people and displaced around 765,000.
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