A $310 million humanitarian response plan, backed by the United Nations, has been launched to provide life-saving assistance to 1.2 million people in Cameroon’s northern and eastern regions.

“Cameroon continues to confront a complex crisis deeply affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people,” said UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Najat Rochdi, in a press release issued today by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“The Government and people of Cameroon are showing great hospitality to hundreds of thousands of Nigerian and Central African refugees. We call for the renewed engagement of humanitarian partners and international donors to match this generosity and assist the people most in need,” she added.

Cameroon hosts some 360,000 refugees from neighbouring Central African Republic and Nigeria, and the number of internally displaced people has more than doubled in 2016 to almost 200,000 people. Malnutrition remains equally high, affecting some 200,000 children.

In 2017, almost three million people in Cameroon are expected to be in need of assistance. Around 2.6 million will face crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity, mostly in the arid Sahel belt of the northern regions.

The 2017 response plan, launched by the Government of Cameroon with the United Nations and humanitarian organizations, covers the immediate needs of the most vulnerable and emphasises complementary action and cooperation with government and development partners.

Over the last three years, humanitarian needs and financial requirement in Cameroon have steadily increased leading to a significant scale up of response capacity and number of partners. Budget constraints however caused significant gaps across all sectors. In 2016, only 64 per cent of the required $232 million was funded.