Cameroon Catholic leaders refuse ransom for kidnapped priest, threaten to shut churches in separatist zone, declaring armed struggle has become “pure criminality.”
Newsroom (24/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) Catholic authorities in Cameroon war-torn North-West region have accused English-speaking separatists of abandoning their political cause and descending into outright criminality after a series of priest abductions, including one still unresolved with a ransom demand.
Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda announced Saturday that the Church will refuse to pay any ransom for Rev. John Berinyuy Tatah, parish priest of Babessi, who remains captive more than a week after gunmen seized him and his assistant on Nov. 15. The assistant was later released.
Three days later, on Nov. 18, four additional priests and one lay Catholic who traveled to negotiate the pair’s freedom were themselves kidnapped by the same armed group. That negotiating team was freed shortly afterward, but Fr. Tatah is still being held.
In a strongly worded Nov. 23 pastoral statement, Archbishop Nkea gave the abductors until Wednesday to release the priest unconditionally, warning that failure to comply would force the immediate closure of all Catholic schools, health centers, and parishes in the Ndop Deanery and the withdrawal of all clergy and religious personnel from the area.
“The frequent kidnapping of our priests and mission personnel has pushed us to the wall and we say that this should stop with immediate effect,” the archbishop wrote, pointing out that dozens of lay Christians have also been tortured or killed in similar incidents.
Church leaders insist the targeting of clergy marks a decisive moral collapse for the nine-year separatist insurgency, which began as a protest against perceived marginalization of Cameroon’s English-speaking minority but has increasingly been characterized by extortion and banditry.
Edith Tanyi, national president of the Catholic Women’s Association, told reporters the attacks on priests prove “the focus has been lost because we cannot be fighting the church, a moral institution and its authority.”
Valentine Tameh, an executive of the Catholic Men’s Association in Bamenda Archdiocese, was blunter: “When priests, pastors, bishops are being kidnapped, you ask, how can it be God-ordained? These kidnappings tell me that the ongoing struggle is not a rational struggle any longer… I will not hesitate to call this criminality now.”
Pricillia Agendia, communications director for the archdiocese, said priests are now being abducted “on average, weekly,” eroding whatever public sympathy the separatist cause once enjoyed. “The kidnappings are not helping in any way in resolving the crisis,” she said. “They are sending the wrong message about a crisis that drew sympathy at the beginning.”
The archbishop’s statement also contained a pointed appeal to Cameroon’s military to act “professionally and ethically,” an implicit acknowledgment of documented abuses by government forces, while urging all parties to return to dialogue.
“The people of the North-West and South-West regions have suffered enough and they deserve to have a quiet life,” Nkea concluded.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crux Now
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