About this website
This website is about Maga, both the town and the sub-division (county), in the Far North of Cameroon. It was constructed in 2011 by a VSO volunteer who had worked in Maga and it was intended to form the initial core of a website for Maga council and be added to as time goes on. This has not happened at the time of writing (February 2015) and most of what follows reflects the situation in 2011. Comments in italics below were added in 2015.
Maga has a beauty of its own, with its many villages, its lake, its hippos, its interesting birds, the Logone river which separates Cameroon from Chad, a sultan’s palace (above), the “cases en obus” (opposite - houses in the shape of shells in the traditional Mousgoum style) and a number of small hotels. The people are very friendly and welcoming. The main language is French although not all people speak it, relying on a number of local languages.
Maga is in a very poor area where life is hard. It is seriously deficient in drinking water, roads, sanitation, infrastructure and materials for education and health and many other facilities. The Far North region suffers from acute food insecurity and chronic food shortages and currently (2015) it is threatened by incursions from Nigeria by Boko Haram islamists. Maga’s children, in common with those of neighbouring sub-divisions, have the highest rates of acute malnutrition and chronic malnutrition in Cameroon and higher rates than those of countries such as Liberia, Mauritania and Central African Republic.
Maga has many needs but very good potential for development should the security situation improve.
Maga has a beauty of its own, with its many villages, its lake, its hippos, its interesting birds, the Logone river which separates Cameroon from Chad, a sultan’s palace (above), the “cases en obus” (opposite - houses in the shape of shells in the traditional Mousgoum style) and a number of small hotels. The people are very friendly and welcoming. The main language is French although not all people speak it, relying on a number of local languages.
Maga is in a very poor area where life is hard. It is seriously deficient in drinking water, roads, sanitation, infrastructure and materials for education and health and many other facilities. The Far North region suffers from acute food insecurity and chronic food shortages and currently (2015) it is threatened by incursions from Nigeria by Boko Haram islamists. Maga’s children, in common with those of neighbouring sub-divisions, have the highest rates of acute malnutrition and chronic malnutrition in Cameroon and higher rates than those of countries such as Liberia, Mauritania and Central African Republic.
Maga has many needs but very good potential for development should the security situation improve.