Cameroon’s Homeless Children Get a Second Chance

The coronavirus outbreak in Cameroon, with over 655 confirmed infections, has accelerated a government plan to remove thousands of homeless children from the streets. About 3,000 street children are to be reunited with their families or receive job training, including orphans and asylum-seekers from the neighboring Central African Republic. Cameroon’s Ministry of Social Affairs is leading a group of social workers and hospital staff making sure they screen the children against COVID-19, which has been spreading in the central African state. Ten years ago, Cameroon said it had counted a thousand street children with ages from 4 years to 17 years in the towns of Yaoundé and Douala. The figures increased to over 10,000 when the separatist crisis broke out in the country’s English speaking North West and south west regions, and Boko Haram terrorism intensified on Cameroons northern border with Nigeria.SOURCE: VOA