The Silent Crisis of Cameroon’s Ransom-Fueled War

This story by Cynthia Ebot Takang originally appeared on Global Voices on November 7, 2025.

What began in 2016 as a social uprising in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions has degenerated into a profitable business: Armed groups now sustain the Anglophone crisis through a brutal system of kidnappings, extorting at least USD 7,884,000 (FCFA 4.5 billion) from civilians in 2023 alone.

It all started as a plea for financial support. A phone call from an unknown number, asking those who hailed from Cameroon’s English-speaking regions to contribute to a struggle for liberation from marginalization. That plea has curdled into a threat. The “struggle” has today transformed into a full-blown business. The “War Generals” are now the executives of this enterprise. Kidnapping is their business strategy. Ransom payments and levies are their profit. Families, teachers, principals, and farmers are the collateral damage, facing both fear and financial turmoil.

Audrey Shiynyuy, who recounts her story with quiet contempt, lost her father the first time the separatist fighters, commonly known as “Amba boys,” came. They dragged her dad into the bush and set a price on his life. Her family paid the ransom. The justification: “to support the struggle.” He later returned home, and the family dared to hope. But when the fighters came again, they didn’t ask for money. They killed him. The initial payment had not bought freedom; it had merely financed a delay. This is the central paradox of a conflict devouring its own people.

The brutal conflict between government forces and separatist fighters seeking an independent state called Ambazonia has, in nine years and counting, claimed over 6,000 lives as of 2024, according to Human Rights Watch, and displaced more than 1.1 million people, per the Norwegian Refugee Council. Widely known as the Anglophone Crisis, the conflict has its roots in the historical marginalization of Cameroon’s English-speaking minority by the French-speaking majority government.

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What started as peaceful protests by lawyers and teachers in 2016 over the imposition of the French language and law system in their courts and schools escalated dramatically following a violent crackdown by government forces.

As the conflict hardened, kidnapping evolved into its most lucrative industry. A 2023 study by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, drawing from ACLED data, recorded nearly 450 ransom abductions in the Anglophone regions, more than double the estimated 200 in 2022. Each abduction finances the next, trapping civilians in a cycle of violence and economic despair. Recent statistics are difficult to come by due to the stigma and fear of recurrence when a kidnapping case is reported.

The human ledger

The ledger of this war economy is written in the scars and minds of survivors. Journalist Fred Vubem Toh’s entry began on the Bambui-Babanki road. It was 3 pm when three armed men emerged from the bush and surrounded him at gunpoint.

A risky motorbike ride took him deep into a remote camp. His crime, they said, was being “an agent of La Republique.” His fine: USD 20,500 [FCFA 12.5 million] or death. “I had to give five guns and each gun costs USD 4,100[(FCFA 2.5 million],” said Toh. When he pleaded poverty, the negotiations turned violent.

His escape was not negotiated; it was seized. On the second day, with only one guard present, Toh feigned an upset stomach. Left alone, he ran.

For three days, he crawled, hiding under tree trunks as his pursuers combed the forest. A farmer eventually helped him under the cover of darkness.

His survival is a story of fortitude, but his liberation revealed a deeper failure. Even after providing the military and the Governor’s office with a detailed map of his captivity site, he did not receive any help from the government. He says:

The science behind the war economy

Okha Naseri Clovis, a former “Amba boy” now disarmed and registered with the National Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Committee (NDDRC), explains the pivot from ideology to profit. He told Global Voices:

He points to a single, transformative event: the kidnapping of Tunisian construction workers on the Kumba-Bakassi road some years ago. Clovis recounts:

Payments flow through mobile money transfers and occasionally cash, allowing the perpetrators to amass huge digital fortunes. Clovis states:

The cost is extracted person by person. Godwin Benyella, Principal of the secondary school GBHS Atiela, has two entries in this ledger. He says, the memory still fresh. The first was an attempted kidnapping where his son was shot.

The second time, he and his vice-principals were abducted from his office. Their salvation came from a desperate bluff.

Spooked, the fighters hastily demanded millions. The money was sent by his wife, “bit by bit.”

Bin Joachem Meh, Director of Academic and Research at the Yaounde International Business School and an economist, describes the demands for ransom as a sophisticated economic system. He explains:

The process begins with the liquidation of a family’s assets. The cash then enters a shadow ecosystem. A portion is immediately “cashed out” for daily needs, “injecting illicit capital directly into local markets, thereby creating a perverse form of economic stimulus under duress.” The rest is reinvested in the conflict, in weapons, logistics, and salaries, transforming victims into financiers of the violence that plagues them. The macro-effect is devastating. Meh describes “severe market distortions” and a “predatory redistribution of wealth” that forces families to sell productive assets like land, creating intergenerational poverty. Meh states:

Nothing changes if nothing changes

Now a peace activist with My Kontri People Dem (MKPD), Clovis is back in school, months away from earning his Bachelor’s degree in transport and logistics. He maintains ties with the battlefield he calls “ground zero,” encouraging communities to unite, protect themselves, and chase the Amba boys out. He says:

He explains that many of today’s generals are “hardened criminals” recruited from prisons, a plan that “backfired.” Their goal is enrichment, not liberation. “When kidnappings are not bringing money, they enter the streets and catch people for a levy.” The ideological struggle has been hollowed out, replaced by the relentless pursuit of profit.

Statistics from the National Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Committee (NDDRC), show that as of September 15, 2025, 373 men, 111 women and 75 children have dropped their weapons and are going through their reintegration process in the North West Region in the Bamenda centre.  In the South West region, Buea centre, 651 men, 30 women, and 23 children are now registered as ex-combatants. Governors of both regions say in media reports that efforts are being put in place to protect civilians. But many say they feel abandoned — forced to continue funding the very problem that kills them.

Global context

Cameroon’s ransom-fueled silent crisis mirrors crises unfolding in parts of Nigeria, Mali, and Haiti, where armed groups sustain themselves through kidnappings. It reflects a growing global pattern: when conflict becomes profitable, peace becomes bad business. The international community’s muted response and local fatigue have normalized this invisible economy of suffering. Yet for thousands of Cameroonians, the daily cost of survival is measured in fear, loss, and cash. In this marketplace of war, human life has become the currency, and every ransom paid buys another bullet, so until real action is taken, the cycle continues.

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