Child malnutrition hits highest levels in war-ravaged Southern Cameroons
The Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima has called the attention of the international community to the plight of innocent Southern Cameroons children and warned of the highest level of malnutrition among kids in the rural areas of the territory that has been totally and completely destroyed by invading French Cameroun army soldiers.
Vice President Yerima said on Saturday that more than a quarter of a million Ambazonian children under four are suffering malnutrition in both the Northern and Southern zones of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.
Yerima furthered during Saturday’s war cabinet briefing that Southern Cameroons children have been abandoned by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Program and the UN children’s fund UNICEF and are facing a high risk of dying unless they receive urgent treatment.
The Southern Cameroons leader also noted that acute malnutrition among Ambazonia children is hitting the highest levels the Interim Government has seen since French Cameroun president Paul Biya declared war against the people of Southern Cameroons.
Ever since the French Cameroun genocidal campaign started in British Southern Cameroons, the UN and the African Union have been issuing empty statements and have turned a blind eye while Southern Cameroons is on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis.
“If the Southern Cameroons diaspora fails to finance the Amba resistance, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing an entire generation of Southern Cameroons’s young children,” the Ambazonia Vice President warned.
Cameroon’s unwinnable war
Southern Cameroons is facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis after the regime in Yaoundé launched a war against the English speaking community four years ago.
The ongoing war was meant to subdue a popular uprising that had declared the independence of the people of Southern Cameroons. While the French Cameroun war has failed to achieve that objective, its military and civil administrators have been continuing often blind operations that kill and maim civilians, including children.
The recent killing of 8 children in Kumba, the chief town in the Meme County revealed to the world that Southern Cameroons children are among the most vulnerable victims of the war, but the issue has barely drawn any international response.
At the heart of the crisis, which started in 2016, was a strike by teachers and lawyers, in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. The professionals, supported by citizens of their areas, protested the unfair use of the French language and unjustified appointments of French speakers in their territories. Cameroon is a bilingual country. By 2017, the situation had spiralled out of control and developed into a fully-fledged separatist war. Both government forces and separatists are now bogged down in a conflict, that observers say, can only be resolved through dialogue.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai