Anglophone crisis: Explosions, gunshots, stealing away sleep in Bamenda

Residents in the city of Bamenda, the Chief Town of the North West Region have decried the absence of sleep in their night schedule.

Gunshots, explosions and other criminal acts linked to the crisis have affected the sleeping patterns of denizens.

“We are frightened. We don’t sleep well. When even a stick is falling outside, we think that those people are coming,” Martha, a city-dweller told Mimi Mefo Info.

To Sonita Lela, a student, she has lost sleep because she expects sad stories from her relations in the village.

“Sometimes, I’ll sit in the house they’ll call me that my people in the village are running into the bush. It gets me worried and stressed,” says Sonita.

The socio-political stalemate has left scars in the minds of some people who continually live this experience of restlessness each time it is bedtime.

Gam George has in his mind memories that resonate at bedtime.

“The trauma of all the crises we are going through keeps me sleepless. Sometimes, I sleep at 10pm and by 3am I’m up. At that time, I only start thinking till dawn,” he says.

Gwe Frankline, a Psychiatric Nurse with the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services advises that a proper sleep pattern that helps the general body systems to function properly is 8 hours per night. But this remains a luxury for the sleep-deprived and frightened people of Bamenda.