{"id":214259,"date":"2019-05-14T02:50:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T06:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=214259"},"modified":"2019-05-14T02:50:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T06:50:05","slug":"un-humanitarian-chief-says-4-3-million-in-cameroon-need-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/05\/14\/un-humanitarian-chief-says-4-3-million-in-cameroon-need-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"UN humanitarian chief says 4.3 million in Cameroon need aid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Mark Lowcock told an informal Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in the central African nation that this means one in six Cameroonians need aid \u2014 more than half of them children. (File Photo<\/a>: Mark Lowcock\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cameroon is facing worsening violence and conflict and the number of people needing humanitarian assistance has increased 30 per cent from last year to 4.3 million people, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Monday.<\/p>\n

Mark Lowcock told an informal Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in the central African nation that this means one in six Cameroonians need aid \u2014 more than half of them children.<\/p>\n

The United States organized the informal meeting over objections from the council’s three African members \u2014 and strong opposition from the Cameroonian government.<\/p>\n

Cameroon is divided along lines created during colonialism by European powers and was first ruled by Germans and then divided among the French and British. As a result, there are English- and French-speaking regions, with English speakers estimated at about 20 per cent of the population.<\/p>\n

English-speaking separatists in the Northwest and Southwest regions allege years of marginalization by the government of the largely French-speaking country. President Paul Biya, in power since 1982, has branded the separatists as terrorists. Hundreds have been killed as fighters from a number of armed groups battle government forces and attempt to economically paralyze the regions.<\/p>\n

Lowcock, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said eight of Cameroon’s 10 regions are affected by one of three concurrent humanitarian crises.<\/p>\n

He said the situation in the Northwest and Southwest regions \u201chas rapidly deteriorated\u201d as a result of fighting, and \u201cthe level of the crisis today is more alarming than ever,\u201d and continues to deteriorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2018, 160,000 people were estimated to need humanitarian assistance in the Northwest and Southwest regions,\u201d he said. \u201cToday, there are more than 1.3 million people, or at least eight times as many, in need \u2014 and that amounts to a third of the local population.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said a half million people are internally displaced and thousands of homes and entire villages have been destroyed across the two regions.<\/p>\n

In the East and North regions, meanwhile, Cameroon is hosting more than 270,000 refugees from the conflict in Central African Republic, putting \u201ca significant burden\u201d on already very poor host communities, Lowcock said. And, he said, in the Far North region, which is affected by the Lake Chad basin crisis, about 1.9 million people, including at least 100,000 refugees from Nigeria, \u201cneed urgent assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lowcock said the biggest challenge is lack of funding, noting that last year the U.N. appeal for Cameroon was among the least-funded globally. This year, he said, the U.N. and non-governmental groups are seeking $299 million to reach 2.3 million people, one-third of them in the Northwest and Southwest regions. So far, only $38 million has been received.<\/p>\n

Cameroon’s U.N. ambassador, Michel Tommo Monthe, defended the government and denied it is provoking violence. He said it is engaging in dialogue with opposition figures, but he stressed that it must deal with separatism, \u201cterrorism and insurrection \u2014 and we will face that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be helped,\u201d he said, but \u201cwe don’t want people working for Cameroon. We want people who work with Cameroon. That’s very different. We’re not half dead. We’re standing tall and we want people who will work with us to put an end to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cameroon is facing worsening violence and conflict and the number of people needing humanitarian assistance has increased 30 per cent …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":212037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-edith-m-lederer","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214263,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214259\/revisions\/214263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}