Student’s face “divided in two” after she was shot six occasions and left for useless
WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES: Bah Median Ekue, 22, was blasted six times in a horror shooting after she got caught up in a military conflict in Cameroon. She has shared her journey to recovery but needs more facial reconstruction surgery
Bah Median Ekue was left for dead after the horror shooting
A student who was shot six times and caught up in military conflict has described how it left her face “divided in two” and has shared her journey to recovery.
Bah Median Ekue, a 22-year-old from Bamenda, Cameroon, was left for dead when armed military forces raided her family home when she was just 14. She was first shot in the leg before being shot five more times in the face by the military. The rest of Bah’s family were able to escape.
Doctors initially doubted Bah would survive as the lower part of her face was completely mutilated, but she underwent three facial reconstructions using skin from her leg to rebuild her face. After spending a year in hospital, Bah returned home but has been left with facial disfigurements. She has lost her sense of smell and can only see out of her right eye.
She is now hoping to raise $65K to undergo seven more facial reconstruction surgeries. Bah said: “My face was divided into two, my community thought they should go and bury me. I had to use my hands to beg them to take me to the hospital, so I wasn’t left to die.”
Bamenda, Cameroon, became a battleground between government forces and rebels demanding an independent state in 2017 after what started as peaceful protests from the English-speaking minority escalated into conflict. Bah said: “The French speaking people don’t treat the English people fairly.
“The English speakers strike for a division of the country so that we, the English speaking people, can be independent. The war has been happening only in the English regions, it has never crossed the French regions. The English people have been the only people suffering the war.”
“Our government always sends their military to fight against our English speaking boys who want the country to divide.”
When Bah’s cousin began protesting to speak English, their family home was raided in the middle of the night on April 7, 2018. But her cousin was not home and Bah – who was ill and sleeping when they entered her home – was shot instead.
She said: “I was shot at home. My aunt who I grew up with had a son who was one of boys fighting against the government. The military came to kill the boy and he wasn’t at home that day, I was shot in place of him.”
“I was unfortunately in a very deep sleep. When they kept firing, a brother of mine came to wake me up to run away.
“He jumped through the window and ran away to bushes, I wanted to jump with him through the window but I didn’t have the strength to, because I was very sick. I decided to use the door, as I was trying to run to the bush, the military men caught up with me.
The Bah recounted the horrific night when she was shot and how the shooting “shattered” her face. She said: “First I was shot in my leg. I was pleading them not to kill me, but unfortunately they shattered my face completely.”
Bah was shot five times in the face, and was left bleeding outside her home. She revealed: “At first, the people in the community where I lived also thought I was dead because it was really terrible. I was taken to a local hospital, and they refused to admit me, saying that I would only live for up to three days.
“From there, I was taken to a big hospital in the northwest of Cameroon called Mingo Baptist Hospital, where I was admitted and taken immediately to the theatre. They weren’t expecting that I would live.”
Bah spent nearly a year in hospital recovering from her facial procedures. Her hearing has been severely impacted, she’s lost her sense of smell entirely, and can only see through one eye. Reintegrating into society has proven tremendously challenging for her.
Bah explained: “I don’t feel comfortably anywhere I go because people are always looking and laughing at me. They see me differently, and I always feel like I am in different world. I will be unable to smell, or see well again. I’m unable to live a normal life like any other young girl out there.”
Having already endured three reconstructive procedures, Bah hopes to raise $65k to fund seven additional operations in the US to rebuild her face. She has now sought sanctuary in another African region, which she won’t disclose for security purposes.
You can donate to her GoFundMe here: https://gofund.me/b034b767f.
