UN reveals 292,141 Nigerians sought asylum in Cameroon, others
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees on Thursday said 292,141 Nigerian refugees sought asylum in Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
It said this was as a result of the activities of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, adding that millions of Nigerians had been displaced in the region.
It said this in a statement issued in Abuja by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
The ministry said in the statement that it was joining the UNHCR, the Economic Committee of West African States and the Nigerian Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons to mark the World Refugee Day, which holds on June 20 every year.
The UNHCR Representative to Nigeria, Chansa Kapaya, stated that in Nigeria, the persons of concern to her agency include the 2,045,000 internally displaced persons in the North-East; 57,800 Cameroonian refugees in the South-East; 2,340 urban refugees; and 1,122 asylum seekers in Lagos, Ogun, Kano and the Federal Capital Territory.
Kapaya, according to the statement, stated that over the past few years there had been an escalation of conflict in the Lake Chad region with cross-border activities of Boko Haram.
She said this had caused the displacement of many persons in the North-Eastern part of Nigeria and the far Northern region of Cameroon. Punch
