The Story of Rose N.T. - Rape Victim, Oct. 1st 2018.
I will forever remain thankful, to Voiceless Advocacy (VOCAD), an organization which stands out very unique in listening, resolving, giving hope to asylum seekers who register with the organization to seek for help in order to pursue their immigration cases or interviews. Through this organization I benefited from social services with the case of its personnel, how to get lodging, health assistance in times of illness and several meetings with the staff, to prepare our minds for a new society, how to apply for employment authorization and to get other necessary support to live successfully. This help was so important for me to win my asylum and I thank them immensely for making my life what it is today.
The crisis in the Southern Cameroons in December of 2017 took a regrettable turn when dictator Paul Biya declared war on Southern Cameroons. There was a military incursion into all the cities in the English speaking zone. This was to suppress all public protests, it resulted to the burning of many villages, hundreds of people killed and buried in mass graves, many arrested and imprisoned without trial. This was happening in the midst of university crisis and the strikes organized by lawyers of 2016, which government had intentionally ignored. This is the reason the leadership of Southern Cameroons unilaterally declared the independence of Southern Cameroons from French Cameroon as the only solution to the deepening crisis. The leadership called on all Southern Cameroonians to come out on October 1st 2018 to commemorate their Independence Day. There was a total mobilization of students, teachers, human right activists guided by the SCNC, I was one of the organizing committee members to take charge of a smooth organization to take place in the city of Buea. On this day, shortly after the huge population had gathered and speeches were being delivered by the leaders, we saw ten military trucks with fully loaded of riot police, military, BIR and gendarmes approaching to circle the population. They started shooting both tear gas and using water cannons to spray water in order to disperse the crowd. There were a lot of arrests, many received bullet wounds and they were nine people confirmed death by eye witnesses. I escaped away from the scene of the incident with three other women to take refuge in an abandoned house in a nearby street, little did we know that five military men with the word BIR labelled on their uniforms was following us behind. They entered into the abandoned building and arrested us; they stripped us naked and rapped all three of us repeatedly, as we shouted, they intimated us with guns. As if it wasn’t enough, we were arrested and transported in their truck to the police detention cell in Bokwango-Buea where they detained us in very unhealthy and cruel conditions. My family was denied access to see me in detention, we slept on bare floor, no sanitary pad provided, and they held us for one week without taking a bath.