The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), in its latest report, has ranked Cameroon as the world’s second-most neglected crisis country.
The information is contained in its neglected displacement crises list for 2023, released on Monday, June 3, which analyzes 39 displacement crises based on three criteria: lack of funding, lack of media attention, and lack of international political and diplomatic initiatives.
The Central African Nation is plagued by the continuous violence in the North West and South West Regions, coupled with the war against Boko Haram group in the Far North Region.
In both conflicts, civilians have been frequently targeted by non-state armed groups, causing many to flee their homes.
Surging violence in the Lake Chad Basin area as well as the influx of refugees from neighboring countries have added the displacements and destruction caused by the crisis in the English-speaking Regions.
The NRC says the number of internally displaced people in the country will reach 1.1 million by the end of this year, coupled with the influx of half a million refugees from neighboring Central African Republic. This has put a strain on the available resources.
“People in the Far North region and the Anglophone regions of the Northwest and Southwest struggled to find safety amid human rights violations, including killings and abductions,” the
NRC report said.
“Meanwhile, access to food, water, and basic healthcare was limited across Cameroon. The protracted crisis is increasingly taking on a socioeconomic dimension, with every sector of the economy affected and rising food prices exacerbating rampant food insecurity. At least 2.5 million people are dangerously short of food.
“A total of 4.7 million people required aid in 2023, while funds remained limited. Only 32 percent of the humanitarian response plan was covered by international donors, the lowest rate since 2016. This left hundreds of thousands of people without lifesaving support and protection services, including basic services such as health and education and legal aid to help them secure essential documents and land and property rights,” it added.
However, three crises engulfing Cameroon remain off the map, and the situation threatens to stagnate.
Rising levels of unaddressed needs, coupled with a lethargic response from the international community mean that more challenging times await Cameroon in 2024.
The NRC report ranked Cameroon second after Burkina Faso, in terms of neglected crises, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger, Honduras, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Chad, and lastly, Sudan.
The NRC rankings show that the humanitarian situation in Cameroon has been fluctuating. In 2022, the country occupied the 7th position in NRC’s rankings of the world’s most neglected crises. It came 3rd in 2021, 2nd in 2020, after topping the list in 2018 and 2019.
The NRC’s Secretary General, Jan Egeland, said the utter neglect of displaced people has become the new normal.
“The local political and military elites disregard the suffering they cause, and the world is neither shocked nor compelled to act by stories of desperation and record-breaking statistics. We need a global reboot of solidarity and a refocus on where needs are greatest,” said Egeland.
Globally, the NRC said in 2023, the shortfall between humanitarian appeals and money actually received amounted to $32 billion—$10 billion higher than in 2022.
That vast deficit meant 57 percent of needs remained unmet. While the funding gap is large, it is far from impossible to close.
If each of the five most profitable listed companies worldwide contributed just five percent of their 2023 profits, the funding gap could be matched in a second.
