Refugees longing for UNHCR's return look set to get their wish

Doungou Alima Achille Arsene arrived in Cameroon in July 2001, after fleeing upheavals in his country, Central African Republic. However, life in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, is anything but easy for the 26-year-old tiler. Since the closure of the UNHCR's offices in Cameroon, he has found it hard to make ends meet. "It's difficult to find work, despite my qualifications," the young tiler, who said he also has an international drivers' license, said. Still, he counts himself lucky because he is lodged by a fellow countryman. Other refugees sleep in the open air, in vacant houses or in the doorways of apartment buildings. Some have been squatting at the Cameroonian Red Cross (CRC), which had been running a joint refugee-protection project with UNHCR support since the beginning of the year. "The main thing is to have somewhere to spend the night," Charles another refugee who arrived in Cameroon from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in December 2001 after transiting through Brazzaville (Republic of Congo), said. "We don't have any alternatives." Charles wants the international community to help the refugees. "Some have been dying because they didn't have medicines to cure them of their illnesses," he said. He and his friend Jean Pierre, who had been in Yaounde for over a year, said their only satisfaction was that they were in a country that was peaceful. However, they were worried by events back home in Bas Congo province, which they fled "because of political problems". They were also concerned about their families, whom they left behind. "We live from day to day; it's hard to explain," said a Rwandan, who said he lived off what he got from kind-hearted people. Some humanitarian associations such as Caritas, the Catholic relief organisation, have been providing assistance to refugees. When it can, it gives them supplies such as rice, beans, soap and sometimes the sum of 5,000 CFA francs (equivalent to about US $6.60). "This assistance is irregular and occasional, but it's a big help to people, like me, who have received it," Achille says. The situation was different up to 2001, when UNHCR still had an office in Cameroon. The most vulnerable refugees used to get occasional stipends, the equivalent of about US $45, sources from the UN agency said. It also paid for medical care, helped defray education costs and provided other services. UNHCR closed its office in Cameroon at the end of December 2001. At the time, there were over 41,000 refugees in the country, most of them from Burundi, CAR, Chad, DRC, Liberia, Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Since then, the CRC-UNHCR Project has registered at least 180 asylum seekers. In addition to these, an estimated 16,000 people fleeing ethnic conflict in Taraba State, northeastern Nigeria, have sought refuge in Bamenda, northwestern Cameroon. According to a UNHCR official in Geneva, the agency's office in neighbouring Gabon oversees protection and assistance activities implemented by the CRC. The source said the decision to close the office had been based on a number of considerations, "including the fact that although 41,186 refugees are registered in Cameroon, the vast majority of them had become self-sufficient and were being provided with asylum by the government authorities". It was also felt that UNHCR's partner, the CRC, was sufficiently equipped to manage the CRC-HCR project, an assistance programme for the most needy and vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers, the source said, and that Cameroon's authorities would be able to continue providing asylum and protection to refugees with minimal UNHCR support. However, an ad hoc eligibility commission set up by the Cameroonian authorities to seek lasting solutions to the problems faced by refugees and displaced persons was not yet operational. The committee is to be made up of representatives of the government, civil society, national and international NGOs and other bodies. And the CRC-HCR project, based in Yaounde with offices in two other towns - Douala the economic capital and Garoua in the north - was still awaiting funds to provide assistance to the refugees. Its staff was also owed salary arrears. "We're aware of the difficulties now facing the refugees," a source in the project's protection unit told IRIN. "That's why we, too, would really like UNHCR to reopen its doors in Cameroon. In the meantime, we would like to be given what we need to be able to function." The UNHCR source said delays in the transfer of funds to the CRC for protection and assistance activities were primarily due to a "period of uncertainty during which the responsibility of the Gabon Office over the Cameroon programme was still being discussed". However, the many refugees who spend their days at the CRC premises in Yaounde hoping that their fortunes will change somehow may now get their wish. The UNHCR source said that the decision to close the Cameroon office had now been reviewed, and that a UNHCR presence would be re-established in the country in the coming weeks. It said the head of UNHCR's West and Central Africa Desk, Oumar Bah, was to lead a three-persons mission to Cameroon soon finalise discussions on the reopening of the office with the authorities. Bah would also take advantage of his presence in Cameroon to assess the situation of refugees and asylum seekers in the country and that of the Nigerians who recently arrived from Taraba State, the source added.