5,000 Nigerian refugees head home as repatriation starts

Nigerian refugees.

There are more than 49,800 Nigerian refugees in Cameroon, 120,000 in Chad and 49,000 in Niger. PHOTO | AFP

At least 5,000 Nigerian refugees have been repatriated from Cameroon at the start of a voluntary programme that seeks to evacuate the more than 200,000 who have fled to neighbouring countries because of the Boko Haram insurgency.

The first batch of at least 5,000 refugees left Maroua, a Cameroonian town near Nigeria’s Borno state, on Monday.