Nigeria: Borno Govt Sends Repatriated Refugees Home With N200,000 Each

On Saturday, the last batch of about a hundred people left their temporary camp in Maiduguri.

The Borno State Government has completed the relocation of over 7000 Nigerian refugees recently repatriated from the Chad Republic back to their homes.

The refugees were repatriated last month over 10 years after they were displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency.

A federal government delegation led by Governor Babagana Zulum visited them in Chad and arrranged their return to Nigeria.

This newspaper reported that the Borno State Government subsequently opened a temporary camp from where they were being moved in batches to their ancestral homes.

On Saturday, the last batch of about a hundred people left the camp.

As part of the package to ease their return home, the state government, through the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, distributed N200,000 to each refugee.

Some refugees, who confirmed this development to this reporter through a phone conversation on Saturday night, said they were travelling from Maiduguri to Kukawa Local Government Area.

"As I am speaking to you now, we are in Monguno. Our car broke down, and we were all under a Neem tree near the Monguno Local Government Secretariat. It is late already, and we tried to access the secretariat with our children and wives, but we were denied entry," Mallam Mustafa said. At 12 a.m. on Sunday, he said in a follow-up call that they were still in Monguno.

"We are still in Monguno, my son. Our car is still not fixed. We saw a similar car that returned some of us going back to Maiduguri, but when we tried to stop it, the driver didn't stop," Mr Mustafa added.

The refugees urged the government to address their situation because they could no longer guarantee the safety of their children and wives.

"We are thankful that the government has given us money, up to N200,000, but we do not feel safe where we are now. We plead that the government should do something about it," Mr Mustafa further said.

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