Warning: This article contains graphic content and images that may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.
Just last week, scarcely two kilometers from the Mill Hill house in Bamenda, two lifeless bodies were found by the roadside. Young men, barely in their late twenties, their hands tied behind their backs. The street did not stop. Life did not pause. Death lay exposed—and it was treated as normal.
Two days later, we were told that more than ten fighters had been killed on the outskirts of Ndu. Images were paraded, weapons displayed, statistics announced. And again, there was no shock. No outrage. Violence has become routine. Death has been domesticated. For violence has become our daily bread, and death our familiar companion. Human life is now weighed, counted, and discarded like animals led to slaughter.
Then, last Sunday, the news returned—this time from Gidado a village in Ndu. An entire village attacked by unknown gunmen. Women and children were the primary victims. Fourteen killed. Others clinging to life. Images circulated of shattered bodies and broken homes. Children—some as young as two—were murdered. And still, the world remained silent. No tears. No cries. No trembling of conscience. Silence has become our new language. For silence has been enthroned as king among us.
Perhaps there is nowhere left to flee. Perhaps our cries are no longer loud enough. Or perhaps we have cried for so long, and been ignored for so long, that we now suffer in quiet despair—forced to live as if abandoned.
We are told, “This too shall pass.” We are urged not to speak, not to worry, not to disturb the peace of those who are safe. We are taught—subtly and cruelly—that this violence is normal, or worse, that our lives are expendable. That some deaths matter, and others do not.
This reality demands hard questions. What is the value of human life? Does human dignity still mean anything? What remains of morality when evil is normalized and bloodshed excused? What is the purpose of international organizations that preach peace yet fall mute when people are slaughtered? Where are the United Nations and the African Union? Of what use are they if they cannot speak when the poor are dying? Where are the powerful nations, the former colonial masters who continue to profit from our land and resources? It seems our minerals are precious, but our lives are not.
I cannot be silent about this silence. It is a violence of its own. A silence that crushes truth, numbs compassion, and buries justice. The world has turned away from our suffering while keeping its eyes fixed on what it can extract from us.
And even more painfully, the Church—my Church—appears to have lost her prophetic voice. When the Church no longer cries out for the wounded, something has gone terribly wrong.
When will our cries be heard? When will someone respond? Emmanuel Levinas reminds us that the human face is a command—an appeal that demands responsibility. Yet the world refuses to see our faces. It refuses to see our pain, our trauma, our betrayal.
This is not just a reflection. It is a lament. It is a protest. It is a cry for justice. It is an appeal to bishops, nuncios, the Pope, and to world leaders who speak eloquently of peace and human rights: stand by the values you proclaim. Break the silence. Act with courage. Seek not temporary relief, but a just and lasting solution.
Silence kills. And we are dying in the silence.
Innocent, MHM
