Growing numbers of young CAR refugees arrive in Cameroon with malnutrition

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Growing numbers of young CAR refugees arrive in Cameroon with malnutrition

UNHCR, 22 May 2014

URL: http://www.unhcr.org/537df8166.html
Houriatou is distraught and in tears. She has become used to loss since her native Central African Republic exploded into violence last December, but the death of her 18-month-old grandson, Djaratou, from severe malnutrition seemed particularly cruel to her, and she can't hold back. The 40-year-old refugee from Central African Republic sits and mourns on the hospital bed where the baby just died in the eastern Cameroon town of Batouri. He was also being treated for a nasty cudgel wound, inflicted by militiamen during the flight from the Central African Republic. Houriatou finds it difficult to understand why Djaratou should have died after surviving the gruelling flight and journey, when finding enough food to eat was part of the ordeal. "We walked for three months in the forest. It was terrible. We only ate leaves on the road. We walked until our feet were swollen," she recalls...