Humanitarian organisations and their staff must be supported by all sides to the crisis to continue their life saving works safely and that humanitarian response continue based on the humanitarian principles – OCHA
The rising violence in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon is making things difficult for humanitarian actions to be implemented.
There is a significant drop in the humanitarian services offered to the population of the regions as a result of the growing state of insecurity.
According to the Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the NW/SW- OCHA, most UN funded Humanitarian Actions have been suspended until it is safe to resume.
The present situation is likely to affect millions of people in need of assistance in the regions.
OCHA’s statistics indicate that some 2.3 million are affected in the NW/SW regions, 1.4 million are targeted for assistance in 2020, 679.000 are internally displaced persons, IDPs while close to 60.000 others are refugees in neighbouring Nigeria.
The UN Sub Office for the Cordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA granted a press conference Tuesday July 14, 2020 in Buea to throw more light on the humanitarian situation in the regions.
According to James Nunan, there are misinformations and severe threats on humanitarian actions and workers following numerous lockdowns from Non State Armed Groups (NSAG) as well as from general violence.
“It is vital that humanitarians are able to reach people in need without being targeted by any side of the conflict… the only protection humanitarians have is their absolute neutrality” James Nunan said.
He told News Upfront’s reporters that:
“Most NGO’s are made up of predominantly national staff from the two (2) regions and every day these brave men and women go into difficult areas to provide life saving assistance”.
Responding to misinformations concerning the activities of humanitarians and UN Agencies like the United Nations Development Program, UNDP, the scribe of OCHA explained that UNDP is not into humanitarian actions.
UNDP is just coherent with it’s mandate, that of assisting governments in their strive to secure peace in troubled zones, and the case in hand is with the Presidential Plan for the Reconstruction and Development (PPRD) in the restive NW/SW regions.
“Measures shall be put in place to ensure complimentarity and sustainability so that Humanitarian Actions are not endangered by the PPRD” he noted.
James Nunan Cleared that air on a common worry relative to the Reconstruction and Development plan when the crisis in the regions is yet to be over.
To him: “when recovery starts only after a crisis is completely resolved, the living conditions of the population deteriorates much more, and it is adviced to start recovery programs as early as possible after the beginning of a crisis”.
The Importance of humanitarian actions can not be over emphasized because they respect the fundamental principles of Humanity, Independence, Neutrality and Impartiality.
