Gado Badzere camp is a neat row of stained white tents just over 25 kilometres from the border crossing at Garoua-Bulai in eastern Cameroon.
On Sunday, children peered through doorways, woman squatted by smoky firesides and men gathered in small groups under sturdy shrubs. Residents who are actually part of the thousands of Central Africans who fled lynching, rape and even cannibalism in their homeland, have found peace here.
“I think I see a sense of safety,” said a senior United Nations humanitarian official Kyung_wha Kang, who came visiting on Sunday.
But Kang, relief workers on the ground and refugees themselves admit there is little else to see. Like thousands more in camps and village scattered across the East and Adamawa regions, the refugees stationed on this former grazing field are not getting all the help they need.
Conditions have slipped steadily over the past two years, say relief workers and refugees themselves. Malnutrition and disease are rife. The supply of food, water and sanitary services are way below the accepted minimum.
Tents are too small to house usually large families and efforts to build more durable dwellings are still in the experimental stages.
“We need help,” said Mohamed, a father of four, who arrived around February 2014. “Our children cannot eat well or go to school.”
The humanitarian crisis here and inside the Central Africa Republic itself is considered within UN circles as one of the biggest in the world within right now.
Most of the refugees survived unspeakable horror, often living on wild fruits and roots in the forests before finding a sanctuary inside Cameroon. Dozens of relief organisations have plastered the place with logos, an indication of the interest the crisis has generated.Yet, funding has only trickled.
“Without resources,” Kang said, “we would not be able to do anything, whether its food assistance or shelter assistance.”
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates its going to need about USD54.8 billion for its relief work this year. Last year, the UNHCR and other UN agencies like UNICEF and WFP did not get all of the money they needed.
“Increasingly we are in a situation where donors, with many crises around the world these days are increasingly stretched,” said Kang. “We have to do an extra effort to show the value of our work, that we are really making every dollar work.”
In all, nearly 200,000 Central Africans, most of them arriving last year, are currently living in Cameroon as refugees and asylum seekers. The number of news arrivals has fallen significantly. Yet, the UNHCR expects the refugee count to climb to about 224000 by the close of the year.
“This place keeps getting crowded,” said Mohamed. Cameroon has maintained an open door policy, receiving thousands of refugees from different conflicts in the sub-region for decades. In August 2014, the UNHCR estimated that there were some 240,000 refugees in the country.
The number includes Nigerians fleeing the Boko Haram slaughter in the northeast of their country and frequent ethnic/religious clashes. Most of Cameroon’s refuge population is settled in more than 300 sites and villages, particularly in the East and Adamawa regions.
“My purpose is to keep the focus on the humanitarian response and the needs of this refugee community as well as other refugee communities,” Kang said. Even though conditions have been deteriorating, returning home is not yet an option for CAR refugees. “Inside the CAR the overall appearance is one of the return of stability and calm, at least in Bangui,” said Kang.
“But my sense is that beyond that surface level calm is vulnerability.” Arms continue to circulate throughout the CAR, including among internally displaced people. “Things are quite, quite explosive,” said Kang.
Under such conditions in the CAR, camps like Gado Badzere are likely to stay open for the foreseeable future.
