No fewer than 6,000 Nigerian refugees from Chad and Cameroon would be repatriated.
Tijani Ahmed, Federal Commissioner of the National Commission for Refugee, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday at the end of a Technical Working Group (TWG) meeting on the voluntary repatriation of Nigerian refugees.
Ahmed said 6,000 people would be returned from Chad while the number to be repatriated from Cameroon would be determined before the start of the exercise which is expected to be concluded in the next two months.
He said, most of the refugees were displaced by the 2022 flood, the Boko Haram crisis, the farmer-herders clashes, and the climate change challenge in the Northeast.
“We are going to work towards the repatriation of 6,000 Nigerians out of about 21,000 of them in Chad. We are looking at returning 3000 households from Chad, which is about 6,000 people from Chad to Nigeria.
“For Cameroon, we have about 14,000 people but we will profile them because we don’t have to force anybody to return. Arrangements are underway to get them back. Within the next two months, we should have concluded the arrangement on repatriation.”
“We are arranging to bring back those who are interested in returning because repatriation is voluntary and an agreement has been signed between UNHCR, the government of Cameroon, and the federal government of Nigeria in the area of repatriation of our people from Cameroon,” he said.
The NCFRMI Federal Commissioner disclosed that houses were currently being constructed in Banki and Baga to accommodate the returnees based on the discussions held with the government of Borno State over where to keep the repatriated Nigerians.
“We are arranging with the Borno state government to ensure that they are taken to skill acquisition centres. They will be trained and given start-up packs because the government cannot continue to fend for them for life and that is why we are giving them a durable solution which includes shelter and start-up packs,” Ahmed said.
Bernadette Muteshi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Deputy Representative (Protection), in a remark, commended the federal government for taking the lead in the repatriation exercise.
“We will try to ensure that this process happens as soon as practically feasible by putting all elements together and we hope to support a credible process.
“We want to ensure that the basic human rights of these people are observed and upheld and we hope that all arrangements can be in place to meet the aspirations of people that we care for,” She said.
