UN Counts 10.000, But Locals Count 43.000 Cameroonian
Refugees in Nigeria
Image taken from a video shot on 9 December 2017 showing Cameroonian refugees standing outside a center in Agbokim Waterfalls village, in Nigeria. |
More than 43,000 Cameroonians have fled as refugees to
Nigeria to escape a crackdown by the government on Anglophone separatists,
local aid officials said on Thursday.
The
figure is almost three times as high as that given by the United Nations and
Nigerian officials two weeks ago.
Cameroon
is a majority French-speaking country but two southwestern regions bordering
Nigeria are Anglophone.
Last October,
separatists declared independence for a state they want to create called
Ambazonia, sparking a military crackdown by the government of President Paul
Biya.
In
Nigeria's Cross River state, which borders southwest Cameroon, more than 33,000
Cameroonians have taken refuge from violence, John Inaku, director general of
the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), told Reuters by phone.
In
neighboring Benue state, there are 10,216 refugees, said Emmanuel Shior,
director general of the regional SEMA.
Earlier
this month, the UN refugee agency had said more than 8,000 refugees were in
Cross River state.
Explaining
the disparity, Inaku told Reuters the UN agency was only registering people in
Cross River coming in through conventional routes.
"This
is a war situation and refugees are trooping in by the minute through the bush
paths, rivers and every other unconventional routes open to them," he
said.
"During
our advocacy to our border communities we told them to allow the refugees in
and not be hostile to them so our communities have been receiving them warmly
and accommodating them. These are very remote areas, hard to reach without good
roads," Inaku said.
Inaku
said community facilities were becoming overstretched and so people were
getting hostile toward the refugees, who were in "deplorable
condition", hungry and in need of medicine.
The
Benue SEMA director general said the agency had also had difficulty counting
refugees because they were in remote areas.
Early
on Thursday, gunmen crossed from Nigeria to attack a border post in Cameroon's
southwest, security force witnesses said, with the incident likely to further
damage relations between the neighbors.
The
separatists pose the biggest challenge yet to the 35-year rule of Biya, who
will seek re-election this year. The conflict is also fuelling tensions between
Nigeria and Cameroon.
Cameroonian
military officials and pro-government media accuse Nigeria of sheltering the
insurgents, who since last year have waged a guerrilla campaign to establish an
independent homeland for Cameroon's English-speaking minority.
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