This is my story in brief
An English-French translator for Boat Refugee Foundation
By Karpov
I am Marcel, from the English speaking part of Cameroon. At the moment my country is in a crisis situation. The Cameroon Government are burning villages of the English speaking Cameroonians. It is a very serious issue, we are in a war. I am in fear for my country. I was caught from my house in Bamenda on the first of October 2016, and was taken to Yaoundé. Where I had to be in jail for over one year, was jailed on no charges, just for being an Anglophone. Before that I was beaten, beaten very badly by militants and minutes later my home was destroyed, set on fire and everything I had and worked for was gone. Because of being an Anglopone I was targeted by the government. Many, many people are in prison and killed daily because of our English speaking roots. So I had to run from those people and from the prisons with the help of a top military official on the basis that I leave Cameroon and never come back. He said he didn’t wanna kill me, and that this is a favor for me. So I fled from the only place I knew and called home. Cameroon. I left Yaoundé, traveled to Douala, then Kumba and into Nigeria. In Nigeria, I obtained a Turkish visa, from a guy, who the military official directed me to. My next move was taking a flight from Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Legos to Istanbul. Where I met another man, a Syrian called Mohamed who helped me board a bus from Istabul to İzmir, a border town where you can take to the sea to Greece. This is where I thought I could cross the Aegean Sea and seek asylum in Greece.
The Crossing
I tried the sea crossing and on my first attempt, I was caught with others fleeing by the Turkish police, where I was detained and imprisoned for, fourteen days. It was awful conditions where they took us. A center, more like a prison. NO respect for me and the others. After I left the Turkish prison, it wasn’t easy. We all underwent serious torture from a guy who was in the cell with us. Thank God, I escaped from there. On my second attempt, I crossed without a problem. I had nothing to lose. I am now living in Moria, an asylum camp in Mytilini, Greece. It’s not all that easy here. We’re giving lodging, but barely anything more. It’s way overcrowded, we’re jammed packed here. There’s not even adequate facilities, like toilets and showers, too few for the number of people living here. All you see is containers & tents with many many people, more than one or two families stuffed together. To stand in line for food, is really an uphill task, because you have to queue up for 3–4 hours and the food is sometimes good and really bad, like under-cooked. Nothing is permanent, we all have good and bad days. That is the general feeling from all the people, the Afghans, Syrians and Africans. The asylum procedure is another story. It’s very cumbersome and long, we’re rarely told anything. You just wait, and wait…wait…
My life in Cameroon
“I was home schooled, and had plenty of time making myself useful in Cameroon. It’s therefore natural that I have this nostalgic feeling after all that was taken away, simply because I am of the English speaking side of Cameroon. Like we all know “No where is like home” but in my case, it’s better out here than go face the genocide going on right now.”
“I am just trying to make my story heard, so people understand what I went through and what other’s are currently going through” — Marcel
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