Cameroon Blocks Asylum Seekers, Deports 100,000 Nigerians Illegally

Human Rights Watch (HRW), on Wednesday, said that Cameroon’s Army blocked asylum seekers at the border. In addition to this, they tortured and illegally deported no fewer than 100,000 Nigerians, who were fleeing the ongoing insurgency by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, and subjected some to torture.

A report by HRW said that the deportations violate international and Cameroonian law, and constitutes one of the world’s largest recent cases of illegal forced repatriation.

The human rights group also said that Cameroon could have intensified one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises by sending people in dire need of aid back to northeast Nigeria.

However, Cameroon’s minister of communications reportedly declined to comment on HRW’s report.

This occurrence is coming at a period when Nigeria is still struggling to cope with millions of people dependent on emergency relief for food, shelter and medicine, victims of an eight-year conflict in which at least 20,000 have been killed.

According to United Nations, at least 10.7 million people in this part of the world, especially Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon are in need of assistance.

Part of a statement from interviews with a former asylum seeker and refugee reads:

“Cameroon’s army has been aggressively screening newly arriving Nigerians at the border, subjecting some to torture and other forms of abuse, and containing them in far-flung and under-serviced border villages,” the report noted.

In addition, the report said that the policy of blocking asylum seekers from accessing protection had made it easier for Cameroon to deport Nigerians. It also noted that the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had been denied access.

It was also gathered that a UNHCR spokesman in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, declined to comment on the issue.

Also, one male interviewee told URH that Nigerians are being humiliated by Cameroon’s army, who beat them like slaves, adding that his brother died following the torture by the soldiers, Reuters reports

“Some deportees, including children, were so malnourished or sick they did not survive their return to Nigeria,” HRW added.

Recall that Cameroon had, in 2015, deported 650 Nigerian refugees seeking asylum in the country, following the devastating attacks by the terrorist group, Boko Haram.

Also, the Nigerian refugees in Cameroon had, in the time past, complained that they were being neglected by their hosts and the Nigerian government, lamenting the pervasive hunger arising from their inability to get food.

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