Skip to main content
Fatimatou Oumarou and her grand-daughter at MSF ITFC in the district hospital of Batouri. She fled the Central African Republic with her brother, mother and pregnant daugher when the anti-balaka burnt down their house. They walked for months in the forest before reaching Cameroon. Her daughter died a month after giving birth in Cameroon. Fatimatou doesn't know what happened of her husband or her daughter's husband. 
Since May 2014, MSF provides medical care for severely malnourished children in the ITFC of the district hospital of Batouri. Currently, around 80 patients are taken care of daily. Most of them have fled the violence in the Central African Republic and walked for months towards Cameroun. Between January and October 2014 almost 130,000 Central African seek refuge in Cameroun, 97,000 of them in the East Region of the country.
They didn’t have anything to eat apart from some leaves. Fatimatou Oumarou’s daughter died in Cameroon one month after the birth of her child. The baby suffers from severe acute malnutrition and has been in the hospital for months. 
© Natacha Buhler/MSF

Gallery: Central African refugees in Cameroon

They didn’t have anything to eat apart from some leaves. Fatimatou Oumarou’s daughter died in Cameroon one month after the birth of her child. The baby suffers from severe acute malnutrition and has been in the hospital for months. 
© Natacha Buhler/MSF
Ebola disease in DRC: find out how we're responding
Learn more

One year after the start of the emergency response to help refugees from the Central African Republic to the east of Cameroon, the work of MSF continues. These refugees remain vulnerable with many suffering from psychological trauma. In Batouri and Garoua-Boulaï, conventional medical treatment for child malnutrition is being offered in conjunction with psychosocial support. This multi-disciplinary approach, which includes mental health activities for malnourished children and their families, promotes the recovery of the young patients.