There is growing concerns over the increasing influx of Cameroonians taking refuge in Taraba State.
The Central African Republic of Cameroon shares boundary with Nigeria in Taraba State.
As at press time, over 4,000 Cameroonian refugees were being camped in four locations in Ussa and Kurmi local government areas of the state. The Anglophone speaking people are fleeing from crisis in which dozens of residents have been killed and several others missing.
But some of the refugees alleged that amid the crisis, they fled because of hostilities by the Cameroonian military.
Some of the refugees shared their horrifying experiences to newsmen on how they escaped from their ancestral homes during “a midnight attack by the military.”
In heart-renditions, they said they have lost all they had to the crisis in their ancestral homes in Cameroon Republic.
In the Taraba camps, the refugees are suffering from lack of food, accommodation and healthcare services. The camps are also in filthy condition.
Besides the welfare of the refugees, there is also concern whether the refugees are carrying communicable diseases that can be transmitted to Nigerians, hence the need for them to be quarantined.
One refugee said: “We are just managing to sleep; there are no toilets and no good water to drink, not to talk of food. Some of us have malaria, having escaped through the bushes”.
Among the refugees are many children and nursing mothers. One woman said she gave birth why escaping to Nigeria. Another one gave birth in the Taraba camp.
One man escaped with a one-year old baby to the Nigerian camp. He has been expecting to see her wife, which he said went her way when violence broke in the night.
“We are starving here,” one nursing mother cried out when journalists visited the camps. She added that she has not seen her husband, who has been missing, since she fled to Nigeria for her life.
Lamenting that Cameroon is not yet safe for them to repatriate, the refugees are appealing to the Nigerian government, international donors and other public spirited individuals to help them the basic needs of life.
They said the Red Cross was the first organisation to visit them, but after gathering information about their condition, the Red Cross staffs could not return to help them as they promised.
Taraba is already camping over 250,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in several camps, resulting from separate attacks and killings by armed herdsmen and Boko Haram militants. Out of the figure, at least 50,000 are IDPs from Borno and Adamawa states whose homes were destroyed by Boko Haram and have not been fixed for them to return.
Hassan Karma, the chairman of Ussa, one of the local government councils hosting the Cameroonian refugees, said the state and local governments could no longer meet the overwhelming needs of the refugees.
According to him, many fruitless efforts were made by his council for assistance from the Red Cross for the refugees.
It was gathered that the relief materials given by the chairman of Kurmi and ALGON Chairman of the State, Stephen Ibrahim Agya, and the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) were like a drop in ocean.
Some community leaders also pleaded with relevant authorities to come to the aid of the refugees, particularly the children and nursing mothers among them.
The police commissioner in Taraba state, David Akinremi, assured Nigerians living in the affected border areas of their safety.
He said mechanism has been put in place to prevent Cameroonian militiamen from from sneaking into Nigeria and unleashing terror. “They are our African neighbours, we are doing our best to provide security for them and Nigerians,” he said. - THE NATION
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