NGA to repatriate 112,000 displaced persons from CMR

Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) yesterday unveiled plans to repatriate over 112, 000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) taking refuge in Cameroonian border towns of Fotokol, Mura, Amchide, Kolofata and two or three other villages before the end of this month.

North East Zonal Coordinator of the Agency, Alhaji Mohammed Kanar said in Maiduguri that the repatriation has to be worked out and agreed between the Borno and Adamawa state governments and the military on how the IDPs could be safely transported to undisclosed resettlement camps in the two affected states.

Kanar said: "The reports we are getting on IDPs taking refuge in Cameroonian border towns of Fotokol, Mura, Amchide, Kolofata and two or three other villages indicated that most of them wanted to be resettled in Nigeria, instead of Cameroon, because the relief materials to have been taken to them by the agency or state governments, are inaccessible for distribution due to insecurity of border routes to Cameroon."

He said when an agreement was reached on the "mode of repatriation" between the Agency and two state governments, the 112,000 Nigerian refugees in Cameroon will be safely transported to an undisclosed resettlement camps in the North East sub-region.

He added that out of the displaced persons in Cameroon, about 50 per cent of them are taking refuge in Fotokol town, while others are in Mura, Kolofata and two or three other border villages near the attacked border towns of Kirawa, Banki and Wulgo in Borno State.