Refugees fleeing Boko Haram flood Cameroon camp

MINAWAO, Cameroon: Everyday they cross the border from Nigeria on motorbikes, donkeys or even on foot, and all are looking for safe haven from the Islamist militants of Boko Haram.

They arrive at the already teeming refugee camp in Minawao in northern Cameroon, where they join the thousands of Nigerians who have fled the insurgency in their home country that’s killed some 10,000 people.

“Sometimes 70 of us sleep here, sometimes 80,” refugee Apollos Luka said, pointing at the tent that he has lived in with family for the past three months.

The population of the camp, which squats on an arid plain ringed by mountains, has shot up to 18,000 from 6,000 in just two months. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 4,000-5,000 more arrive each week in the far north of Cameroon, which butts up against Boko Haram’s fiefdom of Borno state.

About 70 per cent of those new arrivals are women and children who need immediate assistance in the form of food, shelter and medical care.

The UN’s special representative for central Africa Abdoulaye Bathily warned Thursday the refugee situation there is on the verge of a disaster.

“If nothing is done urgently, it is very likely that a humanitarian catastrophe will follow that would further complicate the security challenges,” he said. — AFP