By Eric Tataw – Washington DC, USA, Saturday, November 30, 2019.
A 12-seater United Nations twin-propeller passenger aeroplane in Cameroon’s South West Region belonging to the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), has successfully landed in Cameroon’s Mamfe Central Sub-division.
A source told National Telegraph Mamfe was recently successfully included in the flight path of the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service that is now connecting Humanitarian bases in Buea and Bamenda using the Tiko airstrip.
Our source further described the inclusion of Mamfe as a key enabler for humanitarian response, adding it’s an indicator of the gravity of the situation and the importance of facilitating the rapid movement of key staff and humanitarian assistance to the crisis-hit division.
An on-the-spot National Telegraph secret stringer confirmed the twin-propeller successfully landed at Bessongabang, a town near Mamfe in the Manyu Division of the Central African country’s South West Region, Friday, November 29, 2019.
The plane landed in Besongabang, our source said, adding with no more than 12 passengers as the plane is small and priorities are food, water and healthcare, as well as protection.
The aeroplane managed by the World Food Programme (WFP), offers safe, reliable, cost-efficient and effective passenger and light cargo transport for the wider humanitarian community to and from areas of crisis and intervention.
UNHAS is a United Nations agency that provides common air services for the humanitarian community to very remote and very challenging locations and Manyu being one of such areas affected by armed conflict, the need to bring help to war victims was inevitable.
Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions are in an armed conflict with a demand by the majority of Anglophones in the North West and South West for a separate state called Ambazonia. This crisis has led to thousands of deaths, torching of hundreds of villages, millions of displaced people and thousands of political prisoners.
The aeroplane has been using the Tiko airstrip since October and has made a number of trips to Bamenda, the capital city of Cameroon’s embattled North West Region and back to Tiko. It actually makes three trips a week but Friday’s landing in Besongabang was the first in that area since the beginning of the operation in October.
