Having misplaced every little thing and everybody valuable to him, Joseph tries to carry issues collectively, ready to go away Africa.
Joseph Afumbom is a giant man who has confronted unimaginable tragedy.
The conflict in Cameroon between Anglophone separatists and the federal government killed the 27-year-old’s mom, father and siblings. It additionally took his dwelling in Bamenda within the nation’s northwest.
“I used to be there when the struggle began. The struggle took everybody,” he stated, “It was three years in the past. My brothers and sisters are all gone.”
Together with his dwelling and household destroyed and no jobs obtainable, Joseph felt he had no choice however to collect his fiancee, Esther, and their three-year-old daughter and journey the 5,000km (greater than 3,000 miles) overland to the Mediterranean coast. They arrived in Algeria, the place they thought-about crossing into Tunisia and from there to Europe.
Nonetheless, each Joseph’s fiancee and daughter died in El Menia. “They’re all gone due to the chilly,” he says. “That was final month.”
“I’m simply making an attempt to behave regular, you recognize,” he tells Al Jazeera. “See, I’m smoking. I’m whiling away my considering, making an attempt to behave like a traditional individual, however I’m not.”
He paused, permitting his ideas to float again. “We had been collectively for years. My daughter was three. I referred to as her ‘Little Pleasure’.”
Finally, Joseph crossed into Tunisia, making his solution to the coastal metropolis of Sfax earlier than travelling by shared taxis to the capital, Tunis. He didn’t eat for 2 days.
“There’s nothing left for me in Cameroon,” he says. “I’ll proceed to Europe if I’ve the chance.”
This text is the third of a five-part sequence of portraits of refugees from totally different nations, with various backgrounds, certain by shared fears and hopes as they enter 2024. Learn the first and second components right here.
