Cardinal Christian Tumi. Photo: CNS. Cardinal Christian Tumi, who was kidnapped by gunmen on the evening of November 5 in Cameroon, has been freed.
“Glory be to God. Cardinal Tumi has been freed by the Separatist fighters. He is fine and in good health,” Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo diocese announced on the afternoon of November 6.
The 90-year-old archbishop emeritus of Douala was travelling with 12 other people from Bamenda to Kumbo on November 5 when they were waylaid by gunmen belonging to separatist militias.
Cardinal Tumi and Fon Sehm Mbinglo I, the local leader of the Nso people, were kidnapped in Bamunka, a village in Cameroon’s northwest region, a local source told ACI Africa.
However, Bishop Nkuo reported that the local leader has not yet been released.
“The Fon of Nso is still being held by his captors. They were taken in two different directions but the cardinal has been released. We don’t know where the Fon is at the moment,” the bishop said on the afternoon of November 6.
Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala told La Croix Africa that he had received a call the night of November 5 from the kidnapped cardinal, who said that he had been questioned in captivity but not tortured.
A video posted to social media November 6 by the public relations officer of the Anglophone General Conference showed a crowd of Nso people and local priests and religious sisters walking to the village where the cardinal and the Fon of Nso were said to be held captive.
The cardinal’s kidnapping comes amid a conflict between separatists and government forces in the English-speaking territories in Cameroon’s Northwest Region and Southwest Region. Tensions escalated after Francophone teachers and judges were sent to work in the historically marginalised Anglophone regions in 2016, and the dispute has come to be known as the Anglophone Crisis.
CNA/Courtney Mares