UN warns about increasing violence in Cameroon

The United Nations’ aid chief, Stephen O’Brien, has warned that escalating violence in northern Cameroon, combined with an influx of refugees from Nigeria and the Central African Republic, is placing immense strain on local communities already struggling to survive.

As reported by Reuters, cross-border raids and suicide bombings by suspected Boko Haram forces have uprooted more than 80,000 people in Cameroon’s Far North region over the last year.

The region is also home to 60,000 Nigerian refugees who have fled attacks by the militant group since the start of 2013.

“Entire communities have been uprooted from their homes… daily livelihood activities such as farming, trade, pastoralism and even movement are hampered by insecurity and increasingly frequent attacks and suicide bombings,” O’Brien told Reuters.

He was speaking after a visit to Cameroon where food shortages and malnutrition have gripped the country’s north with more than a million people not having enough to eat.

Almost two million people across Cameroon urgently need humanitarian aid.