US Govt ships in tons of food aid for Anglophone IDPs

Thousands of internally displaced English-speaking Cameroonians will soon receive new food aid from the American Government.

The US Embassy in Cameroon, disclosed that the food aid, which arrived at the Douala Sea Port on January 19, will be shared to IDPs in the Northwest and Southwest Regions who are affected by food insecurity, as well as their host communities.

The aid constitutes of 151,240 bags of rice, 177,188 gallons of oil, and 2,449 tons of green peas, which were donated by the US Government through the US Agency for International Development and the World Food Programme.

The US government has not however disclosed how many people they will target with the aid and which areas will be targeted.

About 1,067,722 people had been displaced by the nearly six-year conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking Regions by October 2022, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Among the displaced population, 562,807 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), representing 53 per cent of the displaced, OCHA furthered.

OCHA further stated that 85,181 of the displaced population are refugees in Nigeria (8% of displaced persons); 376,707 former IDP Returnees (35%); and 43,027 Returnees from abroad (4%).

Also, 60 percent of IDPs are reported to be residing in the Northwest (231,281 individuals) and South-West (137,461 individuals) Regions, while 34 percent fled to the West, Littoral and other Regions of the country.

By Tata Mbunwe