By Tata Mbunwe
Residents of Sandpit neighborhood in Buea, South West Region, were left in disbelief Wednesday evening, July 2, 2025, after discovering a newborn baby abandoned near a roadside gutter with blood still on his body and the umbilical cord still intact.
He was wrapped in a towel and placed inside a market bag and was still covered in fresh blood. Residents found the child around 7 pm near the Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus Catholic Church at Sandpit.
The baby’s cry alerted passersby, who rushed to the scene and rescued him from what could have been a tragic fate, given the heavy rains that fell throughout the next day, July 3.
Locals immediately rushed the newborn to the Buea Regional Hospital for urgent medical attention.
Growing Crisis of Abandoned Babies
This chilling story from Buea mirrors a consistent trend in Cameroon, where newborns are regularly abandoned in gutters, farms, markets, and garbage dumps.
In September 2023, a similar discovery was made in Douala’s Bepanda-Bonabo neighborhood when a baby was found abandoned in a gutter shortly after birth.
In August 2024, another newborn was rescued, covered in mud, at the Bonanga neighborhood in Bonamoussadi, Douala.
That same month, garbage collectors in Yaounde discovered the lifeless body of a newborn at a dumpsite near the Mendong Market.
Even more recently, in June 2025, a two-month-old baby was found crying in a maize farm at Terre Rouge-Damas, Yaoundé. A passerby heard her cries and saved her.
Older data from Cameroon’s Ministry of Social Affairs reveals this issue has been happening for a long time.
According to the Statistical Yearbook, 1,029 abandoned children were recorded in 2008, 1,162 in 2009, and the number climbed to 1,326 in 2010.
Though more recent official data is scarce, humanitarian workers say the problem persists and it is fueled by unwanted pregnancies, poverty, and stigma against single mothers.
Many Cameroonians are calling for stronger interventions to prevent such tragedies, including better sexual education, access to contraception, and safe spaces where desperate mothers can seek help instead of abandoning their children in dangerous places.
Others also blame men who abandon their responsibilities, leaving young mothers overwhelmed and desperate.
