A student of the University of Buea whose name we have kept for professional reasons has been severely beaten for alleged gay activities.
This happened recently as the young man is said to have been visited by his “gay” friend in Dirty South, a neighbourhood in Buea.
According to a close source, they met on Facebook where the victim of the beatings was advertising his gay services to his friend and the friend accepted a visit, to see whether he is actually a gay or not and when he realised he was gay, he started beating him.”
The crowd, who saw him running first misunderstood him as a thief, came out with assault materials to beat him, but when they discovered he was gay, the beatings added as many said they do not want gays in their Quarter, country and Africa at large.
He was depressed that he could not talk to the press after the incident but according to closer sources that preferred their names be withheld, he has been gay since secondary school since he attended a single sex school.
Clifford (not his real name), according to his close friend who preferred not to be mentioned has been gay since secondary school. He started when he was in a single sex boarding school. He became so because he was refused by girls several times when he approached them. He felt rejected and since he could not afford at least FCFA 5,000 to pay for sex when he had a chance, he resulted to being gay.
“Buea is the highest place where a man does not have to be a gay. If he was scared of approaching a lady, he could ask someone to do that for him.” One of those who assaulted the man remarked.
“To me, it is a bad thing and it is something that is wrong but looking at it just from the act, it is not right to be judging him because it is his choice. What if he kills himself after this? What if he has psychological trauma forever? There are some people who are born like that from childhood while others decide to be that” said, a neighbour who detested the crowd for beating him.
Thierry, an observer said; “That type of a thing is not nice for our African society. Though what the crowd did was rejecting the act and wronging him, if you want to analyse it, you will realise that he is going through a lot psychologically. It is not something that we should take lightly. However, we don’t want gays in our quarter, country and Africa because our religion is against that and we are very organised people.”
Clifford is a final year student of Public Administration at the University of Buea.
