LAGOS, Federal Republic of Nigeria. Few days after President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Cameroon, the country at the weekend, deported over 2,000 Nigerians, reportedly living in the country illegally. The action, according to officials, was part of new security measures to prevent suicide attacks by Boko Haram terrorists.
Associated Press on Sunday quoted regional newspaper, L’Oeil du Sahel, as reporting that about 2,500 Nigerians had been “rounded up” in Kousseri, in the far north of Cameroon, and sent back to their country at the weekend.
The weekly posted a photo on its Facebook page showing several departing trucks crammed with hundreds of passengers.
A source close to regional authorities confirmed to AP that “more than 2,000 ‘irregular’ Nigerians have been expelled from Kousseri”.
Mey Aly, an official from a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), said that most of the Nigerians “had fled the atrocities of Boko Haram” to take refuge in Cameroon.
The latest deportations, according to AP, came just a day after President Buhari had talks on how to combat the escalating regional threat from Boko Haram.
Buhari and Cameroonian counterpart, Paul Biya, pledged to strengthen cooperation between their two countries in the fight against the insurgents.
Between July 12 and July 25, Cameroon’s far north, on the border with Boko Haram’s Nigerian strongholds, suffered three suicide attacks, two in the regional capital, Maroua, leaving at least 44 people dead.
The Cameroonian border post at Kousseri, which has been hit by two suicide attacks since June, occupies a strategic position, with just a bridge separating it from Chad’s capital N’Djamena.
Authorities in Cameroon’s far north have taken significant steps to boost security, including banning women from wearing the full face-veil (Hijab) amid fears that suicide bombers could use the garment to conceal explosives.
“With these attacks, the tone of the authorities has changed,” said a security source in Maroua. “They have asked that foreigners (notably Nigerians) and displaced people in the border areas go home.”
Credit: Daily Independent (Nigeria)
