But that is just 1,000 households (2%) out of the more than 50,000 persons targeted. The project, which consists of egg and broiler production, with the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund, UNCERF as donor, involves 584 IPD households and 416 host community households, in intervention zones in Fako, Meme and Manyu Divisions in the Southwest Region and Mezam Division in the Northwest Region.

The project is aimed at improving “the food security of IDPs and their host communities in the Northwest and Southwest following the Anglophone Crisis,” states documentation from the Food and Agricultural Organisation, FAO, of the United Nations.

Through the project, the food security of IDPs and their host communities has improved through the egg and broiler harvesting. FAO statistics show that, at least 7,235 eggs are harvested daily in the Northwest and Southwest by 500 households, while 500 households engaged in broiler (chicken meat) production have sold table birds for approximately FCFA 63,296,000 since the start of the project.

IDPs Express Satisfaction

The IDPs and their hosts engaged in these activities attest to the fact that their living standards have improved either from the consumption or sale of the eggs and table birds and they can afford their needs.

Mama Obi, about 55, who was displaced from Kembong in Manyu to Bwitingi Village in Fako Division, narrated how they ran for about a hundred kilometres through the bushes with her children, to get to Buea.

Her poultry farming, with inputs from the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, is sustaining her and her household of 12 persons. “My cousin offered me this space (3m X 3m) and I started the poultry in December 2018. I started with 40 birds, moved to 60 and, now, I have 100 birds. I sell the birds and we also eat some. From the sales, I buy other food items for my family and can pay fees for those children in Primary School. I am very grateful for this project and I hope for more support which can enable me take care of the children of university age.”

Lynda Ndome Lyonga, 34, runs anegg production unit in Bokwai Village. She was displaced from Muea, which has been the epicentre of the crisis in the Buea Municipality.

“I was a buyam-sellam in Muea. The popcorn (gunshots) every morning, afternoon and evening, forced me and my children to flee. We are 15 in the house; me, my children and our host family. I have one child in Form 5, one in Form 3 and another in Class 6. I am paying their fees and buying their needs through this egg farm.”

She said, sometimes it is difficult to buy feed for the fowls to eat before laying eggs, but once that is done, everything runs normally. She wished more assistance could come for the sustenance of egg farm.

“With this egg farm, I have forgotten my troubles,” she enthused.

Bigger Picture

These are just 1,000 households who now wear smiles, as opposed to the faces of sorrow and misery that all of them carried around when they were just displaced.

The Anglophone Crisis is reported to have killed 7,000 civilians, displaced more than 86,000 people internally - most of them living in dire conditions in the bushes and forests - and about 45,000 seeking refuge in Nigeria.

Humanitarian organisations and services will, thus, need 50 times or more the support being given to these few in the urban centres like Buea, Kumba, Mamfe and Bamenda, in order to reach the over 480,000 in the bushes and forests.

In other words, the people in the bushes and forests, suffering from hunger and disease, need the support given their counterparts in or around the urban centres, multiplied by 50 plus, in order to also put smiles on their faces.