UNHCR Renews Call for Help as Cameroonian Refugees in Nigeria Exceed 70,000

UNHCR Renews Call for Help as Cameroonian Refugees in Nigeria Exceed 70,000

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has revealed that Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria are now over 70,000.

The UN refugee agency also appealed to international community for urgent additional support for refugees in Nigeria.

UNHCR stated that among the over 70,000 refugees, nearly 80 per cent of them are women and children.

The UNHCR’s Country Representative, Chansa Kapaya, in a statement issued yesterday said: “This is not just a number, these are people behind these numbers, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, people just like you and me, who have been forced to flee their homes to seek safety and save their lives,” adding that “70,000 refugees are 70,000 daughters and sons.”

She lamented that their dreams and plans were disrupted by violence in the North-west and South-west regions of Cameroon, where a conflict between secessionist non-state armed groups and the army is displacing people from their homes since 2017.

Kapaya noted that recent arrivals and UNHCR’s protection monitoring confirm killings, abductions, forced evictions and other forms of violence, with armed groups attacking schools and hospitals.

She said over 8,000 Cameroonian women, men and children have arrived in Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Enugu, Cross River and Taraba States in Nigeria in the past 12 months, many in hard-to-reach rural areas.

The agency country boss disclosed that UNHCR, together with the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and IDPs, registered them, with 59 percent found refuge in local communities while the rest live in four settlements which UNHCR helped to build on land generously provided by the government.

The statement said Nigeria has a progressive open-door approach to refugees, allowing refugee girls and boys to go to school just like nationals and their parents to work where they can, and with support from UNHCR, Nigeria provides primary health care to refugees and nationals alike.

Kapaya said: “UNHCR commends Nigeria because it is on its way to become a champion in implementing the Global Compact on Refugees,” adding, however, that “but Nigeria needs support.”

She said the most pressing needs of Cameroonian refugees are food, shelter, improved health care and education as well as livelihood opportunities.

Kapaya said with rising food prices, the economy hit by COVID-19 and the refugee influx, needs are on the rise with serious risks of gender-based violence and negative copying mechanisms such as begging and survival sex. The amount of support UNHCR can deliver is increasingly falling short. Cash for food, for instance, had to be reduced since 2019 due to insufficient funding.

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