Cameroon: The World’s Most Neglected Displacement Crisis

Human Wrongs Watch

By Kristine Grønhaug and Patricia Pouhe | The Norwegian Refugee Council* Time passes – but no-one asks after Haoua

With her back bent and a broom in her hand, 47-year-old Haoua briskly sweeps away the red soil in the courtyard. Swish, swish. As if every swish were a year that has passed. Swish. The dust of what once was. Swish.

“We have been here for over ten years now, and I feel like the more time passes, the more we are forgotten,” she says.

The most neglected crisis in the world

This woman, with her red and white shawl, is one of approximately half a million refugees and asylum seekers stranded in Cameroon. They have been forgotten by the world – forgotten when, most of all, they need to be seen.

Cameroon has been battling three different crises for over ten years: a long-running conflict with armed groups in the Chad Basin in the Far North region, violence in the Northwest and Southwest regions, and persistent instability that has spread from CAR, Cameroon’s eastern neighbour. 

As a result of these crises, 1.1 million Cameroonians have been displaced within their own country.

Some 3.4 million people are in urgent need of emergency aid and protection, and about 2.8 million are short of food.

In 2024, only 45 per cent of the Cameroon Humanitarian Response Plan was funded, meaning that less than half of the humanitarian needs in the country were being met.

 So far this year, as of May 2025, only 10.6 percent of the humanitarian response plan for the country has been funded.

The annual list of neglected crises

Each year, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) publishes a list of the ten most neglected displacement crises in the world.

The intention is to focus on the plight of people who rarely make international headlines, who receive no or insufficient aid, and who are hardly ever mentioned in international diplomacy. The list can be found here.

The 2024 Neglected Displacement Crises report considers 34 crises based on three criteria: lack of funding, lack of media attention and lack of effective international political and diplomatic initiatives.

Cameroon tops the list of the world’s most neglected displacement crises in this year’s report.

They came to kill

A girl pushes a cart past burning houses in Bossangoa, CAR on 2 January 2014, after violent clashes between armed groups. Photo: Andreea Campeanu/Reuters/NTB

For the past ten years, Haoua and her husband Mangawa, along with six children and two grandchildren, have been living in Yola, in the East region of Cameroon.

Their original home is a village 5 km from Nola, a town in the south-west of CAR.

The family fled from Nola in CAR to Yola in Cameroon.

“Why did we flee? It all started when we heard rumours of armed clashes not far from our district,” says Haoua.

“A neighbour said the situation was particularly serious in some towns further north. My husband has relatives there, and when he contacted them, he found out that there had been people killed.”

Even now, the situation in CAR remains unstable, especially in the north-west and east of the country, where armed groups are fighting for control of natural resources and taxes on the main roads.

The increasing threat from these groups has led to an 83 per cent rise in civilian casualties over the past year.

Motorcycle taxi

Haoua has put down the broom.

She is sitting in the shade, together with Mangawa, outside the small house that they share with their children and grandchildren.

She continues: “Back then, life was normal. The children went to school, and we looked after our herd of oxen. But then people started leaving the village. One by one. Mangawa and I talked about it – should we go too?

But our choice was clear: ‘No, we stay – because of the animals.’ One evening, about six o’clock, someone came and warned us: ‘Armed men have come here to kill people and animals.’”

Mangawa looks at his wife. He says: “I told Haoua: ‘Now we have to get away.’ Out on the road, I stopped a motorcycle taxi. I paid the driver and told him to drive Haoua and the kids straight across the border to Libongo, in Cameroon.”

Mangawa chose to remain in CAR.

He recalls: “The last thing I wanted to do was to leave our oxen. But I couldn’t stay at home, it was too dangerous. So I went into Nola. I called [Haoua’s] driver from the town. He told me that they had reached Libongo. They had met other family members there. The family was together.

“I went back to the village. All our oxen were lying in the field, covered in blood. Shot and killed.”

The oxen were everything

In Africa, cattle farming is central to the livelihood of a third of the population. The continent breeds around a fifth of the world’s cattle, approximately 300 million animals.

African cattle are a unique combination of two large species: Bos indicus, which is widely known for the characteristic hump on its back, and Bos taurus, of European descent, which does not have a hump.

Cattle are a vitally important source of food and nutrition, nitrogen-rich fertiliser and labour-saving power. They are also an important asset for households and a significant source of income.

For Haoua and her family, the oxen were everything.

She explains: “They killed our oxen. That’s why we are in Cameroon. Here, we live off my field. I will never go back to CAR. What could we live on there?”

Life is difficult

Refugees from CAR wave farewell to the people of Gado refugee camp, Cameroon on 2 December 2020, as they return home across the border. Photo: AFP/NTB

When the family arrived in Cameroon over ten years ago, they received food and other assistance from aid organisations.

They were also able to sell the bags of flour they received, so they could pay for their children’s school fees. NRC helped the family to obtain birth certificates, which were a requirement for the oldest children to start upper secondary school.

Haoua’s husband, Mangawa, in conversation with a member of NRC’s information, counselling and legal assistance team. Photo: Patricia Pouhe/NRC

The family’s new Cameroonian neighbours were hospitable and helpful. Haoua’s husband found odd jobs here and there. Haoua grew maize and cassava, which she sold, in addition to gathering firewood in the forest to sell.

Haoua and her family have lived in eastern Cameroon for over a decade. The refugee crisis here receives little attention and is too often forgotten. Photo: Patricia Pouhe/NRC

“We managed well for many years. It’s only recently that there have been big problems,” she says, adding: “Life is getting really difficult.”

She looks down at her hands.

“We live off the food I grow in my fields. But it’s raining less and less often, and that is affecting the crop. Occasionally, my husband and I get some odd jobs. But it’s often not enough.”

Long-term crises are neglected

While Cameroon tops this year’s list of neglected crises, Ethiopia is number two – its highest ever ranking. Mozambique, which is in third place, is included for the first time.

Burkina Faso, which has topped the list for the last two years, is fourth.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is in eighth place, after being among the top three on the list for a long time.

The fact that some countries are further down on this year’s list does not mean that things have improved there. Quite the reverse – instead, it highlights a grim reality: almost all long-term humanitarian crises are neglected.

“All my brothers are in Chad, only one remained in CAR. But I never imagined taking my family and going back,” says Haoua, who now lives in Cameroon with her husband, children and grandchildren. Photo: Patricia Pouhe/NRC

A life in limbo

People who are forced to live in protracted humanitarian crises find themselves in a kind of limbo – an uncertain, unclear and indefinable state where you just have to keep going and wait for something to happen.

It is not safe to return home, but you may not have been granted permanent residence in another country either.

The main road from Batouri to Nyabi, eastern Cameroon, where the family now lives. Video: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC

Haoua says that some of the displaced people in Cameroon have chosen to return home to CAR, and that the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) organised transport for those who wanted to go back earlier this year.

Shaking her head, she asks: “Why would we go there? What on earth would we live on there? After all, I think we have a slightly better chance of succeeding here in Cameroon.

“But some days we don’t have any work. Nothing to do. Then we just sit here.

“And wait.” *SOURCE: The Norwegian Refugee Council. Go to ORIGINAL: https://www.nrc.no/feature/2025/time-passes–but-no-one-asks-after-haoua 2025 Human Wrongs Watch

Source: https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2025/06/04/cameroon-the-worlds-most-neglected-displacement-crisis/