A 10-year-old boy called Ibrahim will have both hands amputated after they were seriously burnt by his own father who accused him of stealing the sum of F CFA 1,000.
Until the time of the incident, father and son lived together in Bassira village, Far North region.
“The burns inflicted on the little boy have caused a lot of damage and there is high possibility the hands will be amputated. The situation is very critical,” a doctor at the annex of the Mokolo pediatric regional hospital declared.
According to sources, the man who was reported by neighbours and later arrested by Gendarmes in Mokolo for interrogation confessed that he punished his own son for stealing F CFA 1,000 and not F CFA 70,000 like he earlier claimed.
According to neighbours, the man had been maltreating little Ibrahim ever since his wife divorced him.
“He had locked up Ibrahim in the house for one month as if he was a hardened criminal. Even when we condemned and shamed him for these acts, he refused to change and become responsible. He went as far as burning the hands of his own blood son over 1,000fs. It was too much. He needed to be jailed,” a neighbour explained.
The man has been kept behind bars at the Mokolo secondary prison. Just like administrative authorities, a human right activist in the Mayo Tsanaga has also condemned the act.
“I am totally against and heart broken with what I have seen. It is unacceptable. This barbaric treatment has to stop. I am advising every women to make sure they take along with them all their children when separating from their husbands. We can’t continue tolerating this. It’s too hard to bear,” Hadjaratou said.
10 – year-old Ibrahim is the enstranged couple’s first son. The mother in tears said she could never have imagined her ex-husband would do such a thing to their child.
Source: Cameroon News Agency