Fr. John Berinyuy Tatah, last of six priests kidnapped in Cameroon’s Bamenda Archdiocese, is freed by separatists and urges dialogue for lasting peace in Anglophone regions.
Newsroom (03/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) The last of six Catholic priests abducted in Cameroon’s restive North West Region has been released, bringing to a close a harrowing episode that underscored the deepening insecurity gripping the country’s English-speaking territories.
Fr. John Berinyuy Tatah regained his freedom on Tuesday, December 2, after separatist fighters freed him, church sources confirmed. The priest had been seized on November 15 alongside five confreres during an incident linked to the ongoing armed conflict between government forces and separatists seeking independence for the self-declared republic of Ambazonia.
Details of Fr. Berinyuy’s release remain sparse, with both ecclesiastical authorities and local leaders declining to elaborate amid the volatile security environment in the Bamenda Archdiocese.
In a video that surfaced on social media shortly after his liberation, the priest recounted the circumstances of the abduction and issued an emotional appeal for peace. “I was arrested with my brothers because the forces of La République accompanied us to Ndop for the opening of the university,” he said, referring to the central government’s security escort during a Catholic university inauguration attended by the papal nuncio.
Expressing regret over the disruption, Fr. Berinyuy stressed that the incident “will not happen again” and called for meaningful dialogue to resolve the nine-year Anglophone crisis. “We are praying that there should be dialogue to see to the solution of the Southern Cameroonian [issue], and that there should be justice and peace,” he said, inviting human rights organizations, the universal Church, and international bodies to intervene.
The priest specifically urged Bamenda Archbishop Andrew Fuanya Nkea and Pope Francis to use their moral authority to push for negotiations that could restore calm to the North West and South West regions.
Archbishop Nkea had earlier condemned the kidnappings, reaffirming the Church’s longstanding policy of refusing ransom payments. Speaking after the abductions, he lamented the toll exacted on civilians and clergy alike, declaring that “frequent kidnapping of priests and mission personnel had pushed the Church in the troubled region to the wall.”
“We say that this should stop with immediate effect,” the archbishop stated, while calling on both separatist fighters and state security forces to respect the neutrality of religious figures and ordinary citizens.
The prelate also criticized reported abuses by some military personnel, urging professionalism and an end to extortion and torture. “The people of the North West and South West Regions have suffered enough,” he said, “and they deserve to have a quiet life and go about their activities peacefully.”
The crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions erupted in 2016 when protests by lawyers and teachers against perceived marginalization by the French-speaking central government were met with a heavy-handed response. The crackdown gave rise to an armed separatist insurgency that has since claimed thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
With Fr. Berinyuy now free, church leaders hope the incident will serve as a catalyst for renewed efforts toward dialogue, even as sporadic violence continues to plague the English-speaking zones nearly a decade into the conflict.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from ACI Africa
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