The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has described the alleged forceful deportation of over 100,000 Nigerian asylum seekers by Cameroonian military as worrisome and disturbing.
Dabiri-Erewa in a statement on Friday decried the inhuman treatment meted out to Nigerian asylum seekers who were affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East.
She said despite the friendly disposition between the two countries, the alleged deportation of Nigerians was disturbing and calls for concern.
READ ALSO: Nigerians Attacked Again In South Africa
The Presidential aide said Cameroon should heed the UN’s call on all countries to protect refugees fleeing the carnage in the North-East Nigeria and not to return them there.
“This unfriendly attitude of the Cameroonian soldiers to Nigerian asylum seekers is really worrisome,’’ Dabiri-Erewa said as she appealed to ECOWAS and other West African regional groups to prevail on Cameroon to be their brothers’ keeper in a situation like this.
The deportations, according to Human Rights Watch, defy the UN refugee agency’s plea not to return anyone to North-East Nigeria until the security and human rights situation has improved considerably.
