UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- A UN spokesman on Friday warned of worsening humanitarian situation in Cameroon amid growing violence in the African country's English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions.
"The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is warning that humanitarian needs in Cameroon have increased drastically and will likely continue to rise, with eight out of the country's 10 regions impacted by violence, particularly in the Northwest and Southwest," said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general.
He said that 4.3 million people need life-saving assistance, an increase of 31 percent from 2018.
A joint humanitarian response plan for 2019 seeking 299 million U.S. dollars to assist 2.3 million people was presented in Geneva on Thursday, Haq told reporters at a regular briefing.
Allegra Baiocchi, UN's humanitarian coordinator in Cameroon, and Yap Mariatou, Cameroon's civil protection director, said on Thursday that attacks against civilians had increased, while many conflict-affected people were surviving in harsh conditions without assistance due to the dramatic under-funding of the humanitarian response, the spokesman said.
Since 2017, separatist fighters in Cameroon have staged attacks in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions in protest of marginalization by the country's French-speaking majority.
