Nigeria gives green light for voluntary return of refugees in Cameroon

The Nigerian government says it has agreed to Cameroon’s voluntary return of some 80,000 Nigerian refugees who fled the Boko Haram insurgency.

Nigerian officials had said Cameroon was threatening to force the repatriation of tens of thousands of Nigerians.

Cameroon has previously dumped thousands on the border with Nigeria.

Nigerian emergency agency spokesman Sani Datti said on Sunday that Abuja signed an agreement with the UNHCR and Cameroon for the return of Nigerian refugees “voluntarily and in a dignified manner.”

Last month, Nigerians who had returned home were blocked from returning to Cameroon though they complained they did not have enough water as temperatures soared over 100 degrees.

The UN says some 600,000 Nigerians are displaced in the region.

Some 20,000 people have been killed and more than two million others made homeless since the beginning of the bloody Boko Haram militancy in Nigeria in 2009.

News Agencies