Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Lake Nyos, Cameroon
Source: IRIN
YAOUNDE, 10 July 2013 (IRIN) - Plans by the Cameroonian authorities to
move thousands of survivors of the 1986 Lake Nyos gas explosion back to
their original homeland have provoked opposition, with concerns over
environmental safety and potential land disputes.
Some 12,000 people now live in camps in the Menchum area in Northwest
Region following the August 1986 disaster in which carbon dioxide spewed
out of the nearby volcanic lake, engulfing villages and killing
hundreds of people.
Adolphe Lele Lafrique, head of the Lake Nyos Disaster Management
Committee and the governor of Northwest Region, announced in June that
survivors would be relocated to Nyos area, but did not say when and how
they would be repatriated.
Jeanvier Mvogo of the Department of Civil Protection at the Ministry of
Territorial Administration and Decentralization said work was under way
to render resettlement in Nyos safe.
“The disaster management committee simply alerted the victims to prepare
their minds that they will be returning to their homeland. No exact
date can be given because work is still going on,” Mvogo told IRIN.
Despite the safety assurance, reticence abounds among the survivors and
some environmental groups. “The announcement to resettle victims in Nyos
is questionable,” said David Neng of Environment Watch, a local NGO.
“A lot more needs to be done at the site such as building infrastructure
and public utilities that will accommodate the people. Problems related
to land rights and the use of natural resources by the victims and the
people who rushed to settle in Nyos some years after the tragedy need to
be solved,” he told IRIN.
For Njilah Isaac Konfor, a campaigner for Lake Nyos disaster survivors,
the Cameroonian government has “made great efforts in de-gassing the
lake… But the efforts have been rather slow if we consider that the
disaster happened 27 years ago and the survivors have been living in
these makeshift camps for this long.”
Distrust
The survivors were accommodated in seven resettlement camps. However,
basic health, education and other necessities are scarce. Pastoralist
communities have been forced to take up farming on small plots, while
farming communities decry the lack of sufficient land.
“I don’t trust these promises [to be relocated to Nyos]. It’s been 27
years in this camp and we still lack basic necessities such as
hospitals, water and sustainable livelihood support. I don’t think life
there will be any better,” said Ismaela Muhamadu who lives with his
eight children and two wives in a mud house in Upkwa village in Menchum.
Muhamadu was six when the disaster struck. His parents and siblings were
among the 1,800 people killed by the carbon dioxide cloud that swept
through Nyos village and up to 15km from the lake, snuffing out almost
all human and animal life.
Initially some 4,500 people who could not find refuge were resettled in the camps. This population has risen to around 12,000.
“I’d rather suffer here than die in Nyos. What we need is support not
relocation,” said Salifu Buba who lives in Kumfutu camp in Menchum. “We
don’t have rights to grazing land. The 30-50 square metres allotted to
each household is not even enough for farming, let alone grazing.
“What we know and like to practice as Bororo [ethnic group] is cattle
grazing, but when we came to the camp we had no other choice but to
become farmers. Many cannot survive on farming because Bororo people
dislike farming,” said Buba, 57, arguing that the government should have
offered them more sustainable solutions such as giving each family one
or two cows to raise. Instead, the government gave them farm tools and
oxen for ploughing.
A different view, however, can be heard among residents of nearby Ipalim
camp, which hosts mainly Bantu people who are subsistence farmers.
“I would like to go back to the land of abundance because with the few
square meters of land that each family was allotted in this resettlement
site it is difficult to practice farming,” said Stephen Nju. “We beg
for farmland from the community that accepted us here, but we are always
regarded as strangers and we have several incidents of farmer-grazer
conflicts.”
“We have heard that so much work is going on in Nyos to de-gas the lake
and fortify the dam, but we are still waiting for the promises of
returning to Nyos to be realized. This camp site is so isolated, we
don’t have access roads and health centres,” said Lydia Nzeh, another
Ipalim resident.
De-gassing
According to SATREPS, a Japanese government research programme working
on safety at Lake Nyos, carbon dioxide from the lake was reduced from
710,000 to 425,000 tons between 2001 and 2012, a 40-percent reduction.
The gas concentration around the lake is now considered negligible, said
SATREPS in a report.
“The gas level in the lake does not pose any danger to the people around
the lake but de-gassing work continues,” said Mvogo of the Department
of Civil Protection.
A community of some 200 people currently lives near Lake Nyos around
which a security zone has been established with military surveillance to
protect installations and infrastructure for the de-gassing project.
However, there are also concerns about the possible breach of the lake’s
dam. “Operations have begun to strengthen the weak natural dam. This
will reduce the danger of the dam failing and creating a flood,” said
Laban Tansi, an Environment Ministry official.