A two-day-old baby boy cries as his parents
take seats in a Cameroonian military truck in the border town of Fotokol. They
were being transported home to the Nigerian village of GamboruNgala.
In
northern Cameroon, the military says some 7,000 Nigerian refugees have gone
back to their towns and villages in the past month as part of a voluntary
repatriation program. However, Cameroon continues to face accusations that
refugees have also been forcibly removed.
Many
refugees fled their homes in that area two years ago as Boko Haram attacked
villages, looting, kidnapping and killing locals.
Returnee
FadiNaji, 23, says when she arrived in Cameroon, she did not dream of returning
home one day because all of her five sisters and brothers had been killed. She
says she is returning now with the hope of starting a new life.
Ismaila
Ali, a Cameroon military official who was escorting the refugees, says most of
those repatriated are originally from the villages of Banki, Gulumba, Gamboru
as well as Bama town.
He
says, since last month, Cameroon has repatriated 6,695 refugees to the Nigerian
border town of Mobi in Adamawa state. He says the refugees are fed, given
drinkable water and treated if they fall ill during the journey.
Over
the past two years, an offensive by Nigerian, Cameroonian and other regional
troops has dislodged Boko Haram from most of the territory it controlled in
northeast Nigeria, although the Islamist radical group continues to carry out
suicide bombings.
Voluntary repatriation agreement
The
U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, says it conducted a survey in September of last
year in Minawao, where about 80,000 Nigerian refugees lived at the time. That
survey indicated that 71 percent of the refugees wanted to return home when the
security situation allowed.
In May, the governments of Cameroon and
Nigeria together with UNHCR signed a voluntary repatriation agreement.
Cameroon’s
minister of territorial administration and decentralization, Rene Emmanuel
Sadi, says Cameroon is respecting the terms.
He
says Cameroon has to ensure that the refugees’ return is safe while their dignity
is respected. He says there is no question of forcing them but rather making
sure that the families go back when peace and security has returned to their
localities.
However,
on Wednesday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) issued a statement saying it has
witnessed Cameroonian forces forcibly returning Nigerian refugees since 2016,
even as fresh violence in Borno state continues to create more displacement.
MSF
said these returning refugees have come home to border communities where food
and other resources are already dangerously overstretched and access for aid
organizations is extremely limited.
Cameroon’s
government spokesman rejected the accusations of forced repatriations, telling
VOA they are “ungrounded.”
Source: VOA
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