BY ATIA TILARIOUS AZOHNWI
Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council says the crisis in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon is the largest emergency of recent years, but the world shockingly appears to be maintaining a suspicious silence.
He told the BBC that France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany, all having a past with Cameroon want dialogue and peace but seem to be doing so little to that end.
“Stop the violence, start talking, start negotiating and reopening of schools, protection of hospitals that have been attacked. This appeal goes to both parties and it certainly goes to the international community including the European powers that once colonised these areas and indirectly therefore led to the political and language and cultural divisions that are the root causes of this conflict,” Egeland told the BBC.
The Norwegian Refugee Council chief said he has seen untold suffering in the crisis hit areas.
His words: “I was in Buea on a Humanitarian Mission. I met with displaced people, families who have fled when their villages were torched. And I must say I was shocked by the extent of the suffering and the amount of people who have been displaced.
The estimate is that all together now, this senseless conflict has now displaced as many as half a million civilian people, mostly women and children. And most of them are out in the open. Others have gone to the towns where we try to help them as much as we can”.
Egeland insists that after seeing the effects of War in Darfur, Sudan, the situation in Cameroon stands out as the worst yet.
“I don’t use the word shocked for its own sake. I’m indeed shocked. I have been to too many places with suffering and conflict and defenceless civilians. But I was taken aback by the amount of people who have been engulfed in this conflict,” Egeland said.
He says with more than a million children out of school, and over half a million fleeing their homes, dialogue and negotiations have to start as soon as now.
Hear him: “Let me give you one example, one million children are now out of school because there is a conflict around the educational system, their curriculum, the teachers etc. You know, children should not be without education for years because grown men disagree on political issues.”
The Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council says the situation in Cameroon is screaming for a political response. But the silence is deafening. Somehow, one isn’t hearing the outrage one heard when it came to the situation in Darfur.
“No indeed! There is a striking contrast to the global outrage of what happened in Darfur and we are underfunded. 10% of the humanitarian appeal issued by the United Nations and Nongovernmental Organizations is funded. So, 90% of the funding is not there. Which means again that too many people suffer without any assistance at all. There are too few aid workers in these areas, they are underfunded, they are too few witnesses therefore too few people talk to journalists, few journalists are going there, there’s very little media attention to it even though this is one of the largest emergencies of recent years,” he said, appealing for more humanitarian support.
Egeland, somebody who is known to not hold back his punches condemned the excesses of the belligerents.
“The rebels are obviously committing atrocities and we hope that one day they will be able to account for this. But what about the government of Cameroon that has the responsibility to protect its own citizens, what can you say about what they are doing in the Anglophone regions?” the BBC journalist asked Egeland.
His response: “All sides are committing crimes in this war. All sides have undertaken violence against civilians. All sides are responsible.”
“People say the French government is backing the Biya regime and therefore allows this regime to continue with its intransigence when it could be negotiating,” the journalist quizzed further.
To this, Egeland called on the international community, especially the European powers who have had a romance with Cameroon to step in as a matter of urgency.