ON a humid evening in early July in the village of Mémé, in Cameroon’s Far North Region, a small group of villagers sat in silence around a flickering fire. Their faces were tight with unease. Among them was a young woman whose brother had just returned after five years in the grip of Boko Haram.
By Melchisedek Chétima
Some villagers averted their eyes. Others whispered behind cupped hands. Can he be trusted? Will he bring the violence back? Their questions were not unkind. They were born of fear – memories of raids in the night, of homes burned, of children vanished.
Scenes like this are unfolding across Cameroon’s northernmost province. Boko Haram, though still active, has been weakened, and former fighters – including those abducted as children or coerced into combat – are beginning to return.
As of November 2024, more than 4,000 former fighters had joined the country’s three formal Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) centres. Two centres in the Southwest and Northwest regions house those who have quit the secessionist conflict in the country’s anglophone areas. The centre in Mémé was specifically set up for former Boko Haram combatants, abducted women, and children.
However, all the facilities struggle with overcrowding, limited resources, and insufficient staff. That undermines their objective of providing psychological care and community mediation to allow all the returnees to return safely to their villages.
Yet reintegration is not a footnote to peace: It is its beating heart. Without adequate support for people like the young woman’s brother in Mémé, the risk of the insurgency reigniting looms large.
Successful reintegration begins with listening to the stories of the returnees, addressing the fears of communities, and confronting the complex realities shaping daily life in Cameroon’s Far North Region.
“I didn’t choose this life” – the human stories of ex-combatants
In the villages of the far north, the term “ex-fighters” masks the real lives behind the label. Many of these young men were children when Boko Haram came for them – dragged from their homes and schools, forced into killing, punished for hesitation. Some were orphaned by the very war they were later made to join.
“I was taken when I was 13,” one young man told me in a near-whisper. “They made me kill someone the first week. I cried all night. After a while, I stopped crying.”
“When I walk through the market, people move away. I didn’t choose this life. But they look at me like I did.”
Now returned to civilian life, he carries a double burden: the weight of the crimes he was forced to commit, and the cold shoulder of a society unwilling to see him as anything but a threat.
“When I walk through the market, people move away,” he said. “I didn’t choose this life. But they look at me like I did.”
This is not an isolated case. As many as 1,500 ex-combatants have returned home from the DDR centre in Mémé and are struggling to restart lives they never got to finish. They are not just former militants. They are damaged boys, traumatised survivors – yet all still capable of transformation.
The women who carry the war – and the healing
If the suffering in this conflict has a gender, it has been deeply female. Women and girls have faced abduction, forced marriage, and sexual violence at the hands of Boko Haram. Some have returned from captivity with children born of rape, facing rejection not only for their own experiences but for the children they carry. Others have never returned at all.
“I came back with a baby,” said one woman, barely 18. “My father said the baby wasn’t his grandchild. My village, Moskota, said I brought a snake into their home.”
These women are also doubly burdened – by what was done to them, and by what their communities believe about them. In the eyes of some, they are not survivors: They are suspects.
And yet women are often the ones who carry the work of healing. They care for traumatised children. They organise peace dialogues and broker forgiveness between former fighters and neighbours. They are often the first to create spaces where grief can be spoken aloud – and trust, however fragile – can begin to return.
“I came back with a baby. My father said the baby wasn’t his grandchild. My village, Moskota, said I brought a snake into their home.”
To talk about reintegration without talking about women is to ignore the quiet, determined labour that holds entire communities together. Reintegration programmes must recognise them not just as victims, but as leaders who can help stabilise communities and prevent cycles of violence.
In practice, however, the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration – responsible for implementing DDR – rarely works with women as active leaders in the reintegration process. This lack of gender-sensitive programming means that women’s voices and capacities remain largely overlooked.
Injustice: the perfect soil for extremism
The Far North remains one of Cameroon’s poorest regions. Roads are crumbling. Schools are understaffed. Jobs are scarce. For returnees – many of whom have no education, no land, and no marketable skills – the economic picture is even grimmer: Economic vulnerability shapes the fragile foundations of peace.
“You leave Boko Haram and come back to nothing,” one returnee told me. “What choice do you have? Beg? Steal? Go back?”
This is not just a personal crisis. It is a national security concern. Extremist groups thrive where hopelessness grows. In a region where young people see no future, the promise of money, purpose – even false belonging – becomes dangerously appealing.
Programmes offering vocational training or apprenticeships, and microloans have made a dent. But they are still too few, too short-term, too fragile. True reintegration requires long-term investment – schools that teach, farms that thrive, markets that offer real income.
Forgiveness is the hardest work
Even when returnees are ready to start over, their communities often are not. In towns that endured massacres and kidnappings, the return of a former fighter is not always seen as hope – but as a threat. Some villagers demand arrests. Others quietly flee.
“I saw the boy who killed my brother come back to the village,” a woman explained. “What should I do? Invite him for tea?”
The pain is raw. The anger is real. But reintegration is not possible without reconciliation. Some communities have started healing through dialogue circles – where returnees and victims speak in safe spaces, guided by elders and spiritual leaders. Others assign returnees public service roles: rebuilding homes, cleaning wells, restoring farmland.
These acts do not erase the past. But they allow for a shared present. As one religious leader told me, “Forgiveness is not weakness. It is how we survive together.”
Without forgiveness, there can be no peace. Only a fragile pause.
It’s tempting to view reintegration as a soft issue – secondary to military victories or international aid. But it is the hardest, most strategic battle of all. It asks a society not only to punish wrongs but to prevent their repetition. It demands that we treat returnees not just as a threat to manage, but as human beings to transform – so they never return to war again.
Cameroon now stands at a crossroads. It can continue investing in walls, prisons, and suspicion. Or it can invest in healing: in mental health, economic opportunity, and community reconciliation.
The choice will determine whether peace takes root – or whether the cycle begins again.
Because, in the end, peace is not the silence of guns.
It is the return of trust.
*Due to the sensitive nature of the issues discussed, all names used in this article have been withheld to protect the identities of those interviewed.
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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.
