Cameroon

The United Nations welcomed the decision by the Government of Colombia to grant nationality to Venezuelan refugee children born in the country to Venezuelan parents.  The measure will benefit more than 24,000 children born since August 2015 who were at risk of statelessness.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

More than 1.3 million people in north-west and south-west Cameroon need humanitarian assistance, up from 160,000 in 2018.  Non-State armed groups banned education, 80 per cent of schools are closed and 74 schools were destroyed.  The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says half of those in need are children.

A measles and rubella vaccination campaign in Yemen led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has now reached nearly 12 million children, including in high-risk areas, marginalized communities and camps for internally displaced people.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Cameroon visited the Goura refugee site, which is hosting 35,000 Nigerian refugees following clashes between non-State armed groups and the Nigerian military.  The 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for Cameroon seeks nearly $300 million to assist 2.3 million vulnerable people.

The United Nations is concerned about reported violence and use of force by security forces during recent demonstrations in Douala, and condemns incidents of violence at Cameroon’s embassies in Paris and Berlin.  It is also concerned about the reported arrest of Maurice Kamto, leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement.

The United High Commissioner for Human Rights today condemned this week’s protests in Venezuela and called for effective investigations into the violence that has led to several deaths and injuries.  She urged all sides to conduct immediate talks to defuse the increasingly incendiary atmosphere.

The WFP reached 5 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018, double the number reached last year.  WFP significantly expanded its operations there due to widening violence and displacement, poor harvest and endemic poverty, with scaled up interventions in Ituri, Tanganyika and North and South Kivu.

Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, telling students at Tsinghua University in China that the Paris Agreement on climate change was a great start for countries to commit to lowering emissions, said she was counting on young people to hold leaders accountable to ensure a secure future for themselves and future generations.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said more than 2,000 people have lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea this year — a sharp increase over 2014 death toll — in large part due to reduced search and rescue capacity in the area.  The agency called for action to address this situation.