Food insecurity due to Boko Haram:

RELUFA creates food banks in affected villages

By Maliki Danna in MINWAO, Far North Cameroon

The selltlement of thousands of refugees in north

Cameroon have aggravated the food insecurity of the region

Food insecurity and hunger are a major and perennial concern in the typically agrarian populations of northern Cameroon. This is because of the semi-dessert climatic conditions which make the soil arid and causing poor crop harvests. The situation is made worse by the rocky and hilly topography of some localities which favour the presence of crickets that eat up both harvested as well as unharvested crops. All this coupled with the lack of adequate storage facilities for harvested crops and poor management of existing food stocks by the villagers makes it such that hunger is widespread in these localities, with some families unable to afford even a meal a day for several months of the year, especially during the lean period (July to September) when there is virtually no rainfall.

                 It was against this backdrop that the NGO, “Network For The Fight Against Hunger, RELUFA”, in 2005, initiated the community grain banks program with the aim of “improving food storage facilities and addressing hunger concerns through community grain banks in the extreme north region of Cameroon”.

                The program consists in providing foodstuff (essentially grains) to affected communities and also building storage houses (grain storage banks) for storage and preservation of the bags of grain for use when the need arises.

                 In line with this program, RELUFA on Friday 1 July 2016, inaugurated and handed over to two local communities, two grain storage buildings and also distributed 250 bags of maize each weighing 250kg, to 4 different villages close to the MINAWAO refugee camp in the Far North region. The villages concerned are: MbozoKae and Momboi (storage facilities), Guerenguel (70 bags of maize), Djandi (60 bags), Tarwai (60 bags), Monoum (60 bags). 

                MINAWAO is the locality where fleeing refugees and thousands of locals displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency have been resettled. The ever growing influx of refugees has generated a lot of pressure on the natural resources of the villages around this locality thus increasing food insecurity and hunger.

                It is for this reason that the present intervention by RELUFA targeted principally the indigenous communities near the MINAWAO refugee camp, and not the refugees, who are receiving humanitarian support from international as well as the government.

                 It should however be understood that RELUFA does not distribute the sacks of grain directly to the populations;  it creates community grain banks with the sacks of maize from which the villagers can borrow during the lean period (from July to September) and reimburse during the harvest period. In this way the villagers are prevented from starving during the lean period or from having to buy from the market at cut-throat prices or borrow from rich merchants only to pay back at thrice or quadruple the price sold during harvest periods.  

                “Our community grain banks constitute a permanent rotating stock of food in the community throughout the year. It also prevents people having to move away to other areas in search of food. Currently, we have created a total of 42-community grain banks which are operating in selected villages,” noted RELUFA Coordinator, Jaff Napoleon Bamenjo, noting that since 2006, RELUFA’s grain banks have supported an average of 25,000 people with food during difficult times.

                He explained that RELUFA’s intervention focuses on the indigenous communities because humanitarian assistance by UN agencies and the government is mostly directed to the refugees, meanwhile the villages hosting these refugees are also in dire need.

                Since 2013 that the Nigeria-based Islamic radical group has been terrorizing the Northern region prompting the influx into Cameroon of refugees from Nigeria, at least 60.000 refugees have crossed to Northern Cameroon and are settled besides the local communities in the MINAWAO locality.

                “This ever increasing number of fleeing refugees adds to the over 100.000 internally displaced locals who have also fled their villages in the far north region. The resultant population explosion in some villages has aggravated the food insecurity and hunger situation thus exerting serious pressure on RELUFA’s community grain banks,” Jaff Napoleon regretted, noting that despite this RELUFA will not relent in its efforts in alleviating hunger in these villages.

                “RELUFA is planning to reinforce the work it has done in the region in the last 10 years by creating new grain banks in communities hosting refugees or those close to the refugee camps. We also plan to secure the stock of grain by providing adequate storage facilities,” Jaff Napoleon assured the local populations.