WOMEN under the auspices of Women Advancement for Economic and Leadership Empowerment in Africa, WAELE, plan to assist 160, 000 families affected by crisis in English speaking part of Cameroon. This was disclosed by the Coordinator, WAELE Cameroon, Beatrice Fonkem, while speaking on a three year strategic plan by the organization to add value on the lives of women in Cameroon. Fonkem told Vanguard that there was cholera outbreak in Northern Cameroon, where the crisis has been on as a result of lack of access to safe drinking water and other pollutions the people are facing including malnourishment.

She said: “Over 160, 000 families are displaced in English speaking Cameroon due to the crisis in that part of the country according to the media. The human rights commission in the country has also confirmed the number. There is also cholera outbreak now in the affected part of the country. “We are planning first of all to meet those women and children who have ran out of their houses either because their villages were burnt or because they are afraid of guns or afraid being shot by guns and they have ran to the forest and they don’t have medical help and food as they now live in the forest for refuge.

“Some of them have built huts with barks of trees and grasses they live in. This is also raining season which most of them are under the cold and are not finding it easy. They eat what is available like wild fruits and others because food is difficult to get to them. “We are planning to locate most of these women and their families that have been displaced. Our intention is to look for medications and food items in order to give them where they are. It is because most of them cannot return to their villages and this is part of our strategic plan for three years to come. “We are going to send out our officials to locate them at the different places they have run to for safety, and then we will deploy men and materials to reach them.”

She further stated that WAELE will partner other relevant humanitarian organizations in Cameroon to reach out to internally displaced persons and those who have fled the country to neighbouring Nigeria to assist them with relief materials. “We will reach international humanitarian organizations including the Red Cross and other organizations to partner with them to reach the internally displaced persons”, she said.

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