Concern Grows for Women and Children Fleeing Southern Cameroons – UN Refugees Agency*

The Spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), William Spindler, has expressed concern for Ambazonian women fleeing the brutality and genocidal actions of La Republique du Cameroun within the territorial boundaries of Ambazonia. Spindler, spoke yesterday at a press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

According the spokesman, Southern Cameroonian families are seeking refuge in Nigerian towns like Utanga, Obanliku, and others, after fleeing a colonial military crackdown in their homeland.

“With the number of people fleeing English-speaking areas of Cameroon for Nigeria growing, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is increasingly concerned at the plight of women and children among them” He noted.

According to the UNHCR, Women and children represent about 80 per cent of the approximately 10,000 refugees already registered so far in eastern Nigeria’s Cross River state. Thousands more are among the population of unregistered Ambazonians in the neighbouring States of Benue and Taraba.

“Some of these are boys and girls who fled to Nigeria alone. Unaccompanied and separated children are particularly affected by difficult access to food and the lack of subsistence opportunities.”

“UNHCR staff have received numerous reports that children have to work or beg to survive or to help their families. Many children are unable to attend school, as they lack both the time and funds for education. Although schooling in Nigeria is free, there are still some basic costs, such as those for school materials.” The spokesman man stated.

The UNHCR added that they are working with the Nigerian authorities to assist with the reunification of separated children with their families, to provide unaccompanied children with protection services and to restore the basic right of all children to education. He further stated that, some children arriving Nigeria reported to UNHCR that they had been out of school in Ambazonia for the whole of the past academic year.

“For women, the lack of work combined with the over-stretched reception facilities, creates a higher risk of sexual and gender-based violence, particularly from survival sex. So far, only a limited number of such cases have been recorded, mainly in the Amana community of Cross River state. However, UNHCR is concerned that many more incidents go unreported or are referred only to community elders. Incidents of domestic violence, as well as cases of teenage pregnancies involving girls as young as 14, have also been reported”.

In Nigeria’s Benue state, where two school buildings have been reserved by authorities to serve as temporary refugee hosting accommodation, the UNHCR noted that women and their families are forced to sleep inside communal school halls, deprived of private space and the right to family dignity. For them and for the rest of the population living in temporary tents hastily built next to local residences, sufficient and appropriate shelter is key to ensure adequate registration, systematic aid distribution and reduced protection risks.

Splindler maintained that UNHCR is currently working with the Nigerian authorities to identify sites away from the border, where the refugees can be hosted according to international standards.

“We are also establishing offices in the towns of Calabar and Adikpo to better provide assistance and protection to the women and children. Our support includes food, basic relief items, health, and water and sanitation facilities” He added.

UNHCR expressed recognition for the enormous generosity of the Nigerian border communities, opening their doors to Southern Cameroonian refugees. Almost all of those registered according to the UNHCR, reported that they had left their homes because of insecurity orchestrated by the ongoing crackdown on the independence restoration movement in Southern Cameroons and and would go back only when it’s safe to do so.

While BaretaNews expresses thanks to the UNHCR for their humanitarian gestures towards Ambazonian refugees in Nigeria, it is however the firm and unchanging position of this platform that; the UN has the responsibility to end this crisis ones and for all, for Ambazonians to return peacefully to their homes. Southern Cameroonians are being maimed and burnt in their homes for what is naturally their right, as enshrined in UN laws, and very little is being done to address the outstanding issues at stake.

The UN cannot continue to play diplomatic politics with the lives of innocent and vulnerable citizens, except she now wants to drift from her original objective of conflict prevention and world peace.

Rather than waisting scarce resources to take care of refugees, the UN should do the needful to prevent the refugees crisis. They have the powers to do that and all legal instruments within the UN point to this fact.

Southern Cameroons/ Ambazonia is not part of La Republique du Cameroun. The facts are undeniable and the people of Ambazonia have come to that historical consciousness. They want their nation back. Is it by might to get an illegal and failed marriage working?

James Agbor, BaretaNews Political Analyst