East Region
Bertoua is an intervention area of the partner association: families there have already been accompanied. It is not an establishment of the Belgian foundation, which holds no premises there.
Bertoua, capital of the East Region, helps extend support beyond Yaoundé — closer to families the association has already met on the ground.
The status is intentional: an intervention area, with no office or establishment of the foundation. Related news and events are documented here.
Bertoua is the capital of the East Region and of the Lom-et-Djérem department — gateway to a vast forest territory bordering CAR and Congo, about 350 km from Yaoundé.
The city combines an administrative and commercial role with a rural hinterland: farming, forest, transit trade. The working-age population is young, often in the informal sector; education and health supply remain constrained. For humanitarian work, this is a very different setting from the capital: less dense, more exposed to regional poverty gaps, and historically shaped by migration and flows to/from neighbouring countries (including CAR).
INS (ECAM5) ranks the East among regions where poverty exceeds the national average (37.7%). Older series (ECAM4 / World Bank) showed improvement between 2001 and 2014 (East at 30.0% in 2014) — not directly comparable to ECAM5, but the contrast with Yaoundé (10.8%) remains clear.
Landmarks: Lom-et-Djérem department, elevation 717 m, urban area ~100 km², distance ~350 km (public / encyclopedic sources). 2018 population estimate; BUCREP 2005 census was lower. Poverty: ECAM5 regional notes (INS) and historical ECAM4 / World Bank series. See the Cameroon & ECAM5 dossier
Satellite view of the East Region capital — to place this intervention area, about 350 km from Yaoundé.
Satellite tiles © Esri and contributors. Interactive map for orientation only.
For now, our work in Bertoua focuses on food aid — a first-necessity safety net for families we have already met on the ground. Other programmes will follow with a local office.
Meals, parcels and emergency relief in the Bertoua area — concrete, on the ground, with follow-up.
Support food aidOur operational hub remains in Yaoundé — and another intervention area in the South.
