Johannesburg, Dec 17, (dpa/GNA) – The UN Refugee Agency is warning of a brewing humanitarian crisis in northern Cameroon, in light of a drastic increase in the number of people driven from their homes due to violence.
In the past two weeks, escalating inter-communal clashes have led to the displacement of more than 100,000 people, the UN agency said on Friday.
Of that number, more than 85,000 people have fled into neighboring Chad, while at least 15,000 Cameroonians are internally displaced.
“Since humanitarian access in the area is very limited, these totals may be much higher,” the UN Refugee Agency said in a statement on Friday.
Several villages have been burned down, and the number of dead and wounded is increasing.
The UN is urgently appealing for financial support, saying the number of people streaming into Chad “has accelerated fast.”
Cameroon has been rocked by unrest and attacks on the civilian population since late 2016. At that time, its two largest English-speaking regions had announced that they would split off and start a new country called Ambazonia.
English speakers in Cameroon have long complained that they are treated like second-class citizens and that they receive less government funding in predominantly French-speaking Cameroon.
There are repeated protests against which the security forces are known to use violence.
Before the World War I, Cameroon was a German colony. After Germany’s defeat, colonial powers France and Britain divided the country among themselves.
GNA