Refugees of Boko Haram Attacks Return to Nigeria

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

More than 1,000 Nigerians, out of the thousands who fled attacks by Boko Haram jihadists to neighboring countries, returned to their homeland at the end of 2015.

Between December 14 and December 16, 1,187 Nigerians who had been sheltering across the border in Cameroon resettled in a refugee camp in the northeastern state of Adamawa “as a result of improvement in the security situation,” National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Sani Datti said.

An additional 15,000 Nigerians were expected to return to their country in subsequent weeks, Datti said.

Since August 2015, thousands of Nigerian citizens have come back across the border, wooed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s pledge to seriously dent Boko Haram’s fighting capacity by the end of the year.

Buhari said in early December that his government would “do all within its powers to facilitate the quick return and resettlement” of those displaced.

Security analysts say the Army has achieved some success in pushing the extremists out of captured territory in Nigeria’s northeast and reducing their ability to mount attacks.

But sporadic deadly raids on towns and villages in the region continue, as well as in northern Cameroon, southeastern Niger and on the Chadian side of Lake Chad, where all four countries meet.