ACTION AGAINST HUNGER’S MOBILE TEAMS ON THE GROUND TO ANSWER TO URGENT NEEDS OF NEW NIGERIAN REFUGEES

Following the devastating attack of the city of Rann in North-Eastern Nigeria on January 14th, nearly 30,000 people took refuge in the vicinity of the city of Goura in Cameroon.

The majority of the refugees are women, children and elderly who are particularly vulnerable. Action Against Hunger’s first assessments show severe acute malnutrition rate exceeding twice the emergency threshold.

Action Against Hunger teams in Goura assessed the nutritional status of 976 children under 5 years old. Among them, 4% suffered from severe acute malnutrition requiring immediate medical care and nearly 8% were moderately acutely malnourished.

« The evaluations conducted by Action Against Hunger teams in Goura are particularly worrying. Among children under 5 who fled the town of Rann, more than 4% suffer from Severe acute malnutrition requiring mediacal care. These figures are exceeding twice the emergency threshold » alarmed Aurélie Carmeille, representative of Action Against Hunger in Cameroon.

Present in the area to assist displaced Cameroonians, Action Against Hunger immediately deployed two mobile clinics to screen and treat children suffering from malnutrition an provide primary healthcare. Children suffering from severe acute malnutrition were immediately treated.

The 30,000 new refugees in Goura are added to the 102,000 Nigerian refugees already in Cameroon. Civilians in the region are paying a heavy price for the new escalation of violence in North-Eastern Nigeria. In the Lake Chad region more than 2,5 millions people are displaced by the violence and more than 3,5 million people are food insecure.

Action Against Hunger has been present in Cameroun since 2014 and focuses its interventions in the regions of Batouri, Kousseri and Maroua. In parallel of the emergency responses to refugees, Action Against Hunger is working on long-term projects to strengthen people’s livelihoods.