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afrol News, 11 April - Tens of thousands of Fulani herders have fled Nigeria's eastern Taraba State to Cameroon, escaping the ethnic clashes which broke out in the Mambila plateau with farming communities at the beginning of the year. The herders are bringing their huge herds of livestock with them and are treated as refugees by local government in north-western Cameroon. A Cameroonian government official yesterday told the French news agency AFP that additional thousands of Nigerian herders had crossed the border this week, accompanied by herds of each over 1,000 animals. "They say they are being persecuted in the Nigerian state of Taraba," he stated to AFP. In January this year, clashes between different ethnic groups over land and water claimed more than 50 lives in Taraba, a small province marred with ethnic conflict since the 1950s. Immediately after the January clashes, over 20,000 Fulani herdsmen fled the province to they ethnic kinfolks in nearby Cameroon, taking large amounts of livestock with them. In February, the Miyetti Alla Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) said in a statement that "attacks on Fulani pastoralists who produce 75 percent of the protein needs of the country are becoming incessant, particularly in states like Plateau, Nasarawa, Bauchi, Taraba and Benue states." Over 50,000 cattle had also been killed in the January assaults. Arriving in Cameroon, the herdsmen are received by local authorities, asking them to vaccinate all their animals. The Cameroonian daily 'Mutations' however wrote on Tuesday that Cameroonian locals felt threatened by the presence of the herdsmen, as people from Taraba were "increasingly crossing the border, weapons in hand, to pursue the herders." Further, the arrival - seen by some Cameroonians as a planned migration - also produces a rather delicate situation in the ongoing border disputes between the two neighbours, currently being settled by the International Tribunal in The Hague. "There is a risk of confusion and of the opening of a new frontline in the conflict between Cameroon and Nigeria," the mayor of Mwa, a village receiving Fulani refugees, told 'Mutations'. The Fulani semi-nomadic herdsmen, M'bororo, are kin to the people establishing the Sokoto Caliphate in northern Nigeria and Cameroon in the 19th century. They constitute an estimated 10 percent of the population in the zone, but local officials hold that they occupy 85 percent of the entire Mambila land. The sedentary peoples however occupy the most fertile lands, best suited for agriculture. Land use in the zone always has been extensive, and sharing of land resources between agriculturalists and herdsmen has been customary since the arrival of M'bororo Fulanis in the 16th century, according to historians. In Northern Cameroon, the Fulani people still enjoys a relatively privileged status, heading customary government. The M'bororo minority of the otherwise sedentarised Fulani people has a freer access to pastures due to protection from the governing Fulani, but remains underprivileged also in Cameroon. In Northern Nigeria, the sedentary Fulani people has become a privileged minority, often representing the religious leadership, but seldom having political power.
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