Climate change fuels violent conflict in Cameroon – UN
The violence began when Muslims built dams to divert water to help them catch fish, in a location where ethnic Arab Choa herders also take their cattle for watering. The herders were angry because their livestock were falling into holes in the ground dug by the fishers to lure their catch.
CAPE TOWN, September 9 (ANA) – Climate change has fuelled the violent intercommunal clashes that has forced thousands to flee their homes in Cameroon’s Far North region, the United Nations Refugee Agency has said on Thursday.
Under normal circumstances, small boats criss-cross the Logone River, which marks the border between Cameroon and Chad, in both directions. But recently, 11,000 Cameroonians, mostly women and children, have taken a one-way trip to Chad.
The clashes between Choa Arab herders and Mousgoum fishermen and farmers began on August 10 in Missiska, in the Logone Birni district of Cameroon’s Far North region.
Since then, 19 villages have been torched and 40 villages have been abandoned by their fearful residents. At least 45 people have been killed and 74 others injured.
Regional governor Midjiyawa Bakari says the violence arises from Muslims building dams to divert water to help them catch fish, in a location where ethnic Arab Choa herders also take their cattle for watering.
The herders were angry because their livestock were falling into holes in the ground dug by the fishers to lure their catch, Bahar said.
Another 15 people have gone missing and are feared to have died while trying to cross the Logone river to Chad.
During last month’s call by the UNHCR on governments concerned to do “everything possible” to reduce the violence, director of the Regional Bureau for West and Central Africa, Millicent Mutuli said governments should ensure the safety of people forced to flee their homes because of intercommunal tensions.
Jean-Pierre Semana, a 52-year-old Choa Arab Cameroonian, crossed safely with his wife and six children to Oundouma, a village on the Chadian side of the river.
“It was the war that brought me to Chad,” he said. “I was forced to flee. During my flight, I saw dead people, right in front of my eyes.”
The population of Oundouma has tripled in a fortnight with the arrival of 3,000 refugees. The rest of the refugees are scattered in seven villages along the Logone river.
The UNHCR and its partners have distributed basic necessities, set up community kitchens to serve hot meals, and erected four communal shelters, but the need for more food, water and shelter remain urgent with many refugees still sleeping under trees amidst frequent downpours.
“We are in the middle of the rainy season and malaria is affecting 76 percent of the population, refugees and host communities alike,” said Iris Blom, UNHCR’s deputy representative in Chad, who visited Oundouma recently.
She said the UNHCR has set up mobile clinics and distributed medication and mosquito nets, but the heavy rains have made the roads leading to the isolated villages, where refugees are sheltering, almost impassable.
Despite the difficulties caused by the rains, it is their absence that is the root cause of the clashes that drove the exodus from Cameroon.
Climate change is a reality in this region of the Sahel where temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average and the UN estimates that 80 percent of farmland is degraded, the UN agency said.
Over the past 60 years, the surface of Lake Chad, of which the Logone River is one of the main tributaries, has decreased by as much as 95 percent.
Amina Moussa, a 20-year-old Musgum woman, was heavily pregnant when the violence forced her to flee. She felt her first contractions while she was still travelling.
“I had to rest every 100 metres,” she recalled from the home of a local family in Oundouma where she has found refuge. “My delivery was facilitated by a village midwife two days after I arrived here.”
Amina left her husband behind and has received no news of him since arriving in Chad.
Cameroon has deployed security forces and undertaken disarmament operations and mediation to put an end to the clashes.
Although relative calm has been restored, many of the refugees and 12,500 people displaced within Cameroon will not return immediately, especially those whose homes were burned down.
Farmers have been unable to tend to their crops for several weeks in the middle of the rainy season, a crucial time when crops require a lot of care. Much of the harvest is now lost.
UNHCR and its partners are supporting the Cameroonian and Chadian authorities to respond to the emergency but finding longer-term solutions to the impacts of climate change is a more complex challenge.
Africa remains the most vulnerable continent when it comes to climate change despite its low contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, this vulnerability is driven by the prevailing low levels of socio-economic growth in the continent.
The UN says that increasing temperatures and sea levels, changing precipitation patterns and more extreme weather are threatening human health and safety, food and water security and socio-economic development in Africa, a region already well stretched with its resources.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Naomi Mackay