YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon (CNS) -- Ita Joy, a third-year medical student at the Catholic University of Bamenda in Cameroon's troubled Northwest region, recalls how in 2019 gunmen stormed their home in Wum, about 50 miles from Bamenda.
"They took away my father's entire (herd of) cattle -- more than 70 cows," she told Catholic News Service. "That was his only source of income, and he was using cattle to pay my tuition."
With her father's cattle all gone, Joy now finds it hard paying her yearly tuition of 1.2 million Central African francs (US$1,935), more than five times her family's yearly income. In Cameroon, nearly 40% of the population still lives below the poverty line.
"My parents cultivate crops now, and the little they generate from the farm in terms of money, they send to me to buy my basic needs," she told CNS.
Cameroon's two English-speaking regions -- Northwest and Southwest -- have been embroiled in separatist violence for over six years. What started as a strike by lawyers and teachers in 2016 turned violent after the government took a hard line. Minority English speakers, complaining about decades of marginalization, started fighting to create a new nation to be called Ambazonia.
The fighting has so far left at least 6,000 people dead and more than 700,000 displaced.
Father Joseph Awoh Jum, vice chancellor of the Catholic University of Bamenda, said the fighting has made it harder for many parents to meet the school needs of their children. So, the university has started an appeal to help students like Joy. The appeal generated over 5 million Central African francs, or more than $8,000.
"From that 5 million, we reduced some of the debts. One of the students got as much as 1 million from that amount of money," Father Jum told CNS.
In addition, the archbishop of Bamenda "provided school fee loans to four of our medical students who were threatened with dropping out so that they could complete their training, work in archdiocesan health institutions and eventually pay back these loans."
Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda, president of the Cameroonian bishops' conference, also asked Christians to intensify prayers and asked Mary to intercede for peace to return.
While launching the Year of the Eucharist at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Abango Dec. 6, Archbishop Fuanya said Mary must not be allowed to rest until peace returns. He also consecrated the Bamenda ecclesiastical province -- which includes the Northwest and Southwest regions, to Mary, Queen of Peace.
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