* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
By Merilyne Ojong
Kadidja, 15, is a refugee from the Central African Republic (CAR). Already married and mother of a 2-year-old daughter, Kadidja presently lives in a tent set up in a hospital compound in Batouri – a small town in the East region of Cameroon. She shares the temporary shelter with 5 other refugee families, which includes men.
Kadidja is an unaccompanied minor. She fled her village of Jawa near the CAR capital of Bangui as the violence escalated in her area. She has no idea about the whereabouts of her husband or her parents. She does not even know for sure if they are still alive.
Kadidja joined a group of people fleeing the violence and trekked for 4 months with her baby to make it to the Cameroonian border. She completed the arduous trek of over 600 kilometres amidst violence, starvation and a real threat of death.
“My daughter and I sometimes went without food in the forest for up to six days,” she says. “I saw many children die along the way. I was terrified and prayed that mine won’t die as well.”
On their arrival at the border at Gbiti in the East region of Cameroon, Kadidja and her daughter were taken to a temporary holding site for arriving refugees. They were soon moved to a hospital in Batouri about 60 kilometres away as Kadidja’s daughter Mariama was diagnosed with severe malnutrition compounded by diarrhoea. A frail Mariama is currently undergoing treatment.
All alone, Kadidja spends most of her time in the tent holding her child. She rarely speaks to other refugee families. “I don’t have any friends here; I just want to go home to be with my father and my husband. But, I am afraid of what will happen to me back there,” she says. Once Mariama recovers, Kadidja will return to the refugee transit centre in Gbiti and will stay there until she is transferred to refugee sites in the villages of Mbile or Gado in the East region of Cameroon.
Kadidja is just one of the many unaccompanied children and young mothers crossing the Cameroonian borders each day to escape the bloody violence in CAR. According to UNHCR among more than 80,000 CAR refugees that have crossed over to the Cameroonian side, over 36,000 are children, including teenage mothers. The majority of them have walked for several months in extreme conditions and have arrived in Cameroon totally exhausted. Many have caught diseases and developed illnesses on the way. A lot of young mothers have sick children with them that need care and attention.
Humanitarian organisation Plan International is among the main aid agencies responding to the present refugee crisis across all the 5 refugee sites in Cameroon. “Being a child-centred organisation Plan’s top priority is the welfare of refugee children. The immediate relief phase of our two-year emergency response will be geared towards meeting the urgent hygiene and sanitation needs of refugee children and their mothers,” says Henri-Noel Tatangang, Plan’s emergency specialist for West Africa region.
Plan’s relief work was launched in the first week of May with the distribution of first aid items and drugs at a health centre catering to refugees in the East region. Additionally, hygiene kits have been distributed to 3000 refugee families. A hygiene kit contains bars of soap, sanitary towels for women, tooth brushes, tooth paste and a plastic bucket. “There are thousands of children in refugee sites and meeting their needs will remain our main focus. Over the coming weeks Plan will extend its response to particularly cover the areas of child protection and education where there is a huge unmet need,” says Tatangang.
(Name of the case study has been changed.)
(Merilyne Ojong is Information Officer with Plan International in Cameroon. This is the last of a series of three special reports on CAR refugees in Cameroon.)
