AN APPRAISAL ON THE PREDICAMENT OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS (IDPS) AND REFUGEES OF THE ANGLOPHONE ARMED CONFLICT IN CAMEROON
Abstract
As a result of the outbreak of the contemporary Anglophone crisis in late 2016, an armed conflict broke out in the Anglophone North-West and South-West Regions of Cameroon between the military and Ambazonians separatists called “Amba Boys”.The unprecedented violence and egregious violations of human rights and humanitarian norms in the armed conflict led to a daunting and grave humanitarian crisis in the Anglophone regions (South West and North West Region), with tens of thousands forcefully displaced as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and hundreds of thousands as refugees in neighbouring Benue and the Cross River State of Nigeria living under dire conditions. United Nations humanitarian agencies and several national and international non-governmental humanitarian agencies have been concerned and overwhelmed by the scale and gravity of the humanitarian disaster in the Anglophone regions, which they have qualified as one of the fastest-growing humanitarian crises South of the Sahara. This paper is meant to examine the predicament of Anglophone IDPs in Cameroon and Anglophone refugees in Nigeria, with emphasis on the humanitarian relief efforts undertaken by various stakeholders to alleviate their plight. The paper is essentially a case study and adopts the qualitative research approach with data obtained from secondary sources through the desk research method.
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