Yaounde homeless family resides in public garden

The garden which was created for relaxation is now home for the stranded family. Marthe Ndome and her family have a bitter experience they will live to remember. The family, made up of three women and a two-year old baby boy, is practically living in the streets precisely in the Garden surrounding the Charles Atangana Statue in Yaounde.

Despite the chilly weather in Yaounde during the past few weeks, the family continues to adapt to the adverse weather conditions. When Cameroon Tribune reporters visited the site on May 6, 2014, the family had shifted from the usual spot it occupies in the garden.

Marie Nicaisse, 23, said she is living in the garden with her two-year old son, her elder sister, Marthe, and her niece, Therese, 19. Marthe had gone to the market to buy some mangoes. Marie Nicaisse said all of them were living in the Emana neighbourhood with a guardian whose names were got as Oscar Beninyi who knew her dead parents.

They lived happily with Oscar Beninyi but when the latter died seven months ago, the indigenes of Emana forced them out of the house and the land even though the latter belonged to late Oscar Benyinyi. “Since we had no place to go to, we decided to stay here,” she said.

The family, however, lives in the garden during the day but sleeps in the corridors of a chapel in another neighbourhood. They feed on mangoes and get water from a broken water pipe beside in the nearby cemetery or from the premises of the Ministry of Transport.

According to one of keepers of the garden, Steve, the family has been living in the garden for almost nine months. He said officials of the Hygiene and Sanitation Department of the Yaounde I Council have asked them to live but they are stubborn. “Our boss once brought the police and chased them away but they went and came back,” he said.

However, some passers-by have been giving humanitarian support although they are not beggars. As far as security is concerned, Marie Nicaisse said the police of the nearby police station are always around to ensure that there are no ill-intentioned fellows disturb them especially as they are women.