Chad has arrested hundreds of Nigerians living in the neighbouring country seeking safety from insurgents and deported them back to Nigeria, those arrested told AFP.
The deportations were after analysts raised the alarm of an uptick in jihadist activity in northeast Nigeria over the past year.
Two arrested Nigerians in Chad told AFP that around 600 of their compatriots were detained in mass arrests and detained in the Cameroonian town of Kousseri, which is a border town from Chad’s capital N’Djamena.
Chadian police who confirmed the deportations but did not give a figure, said they had embarked on “a routine operation” against undocumented immigrants without regard to nationality.
“On Friday, security personnel raided our home,” Kyari Musa, who had been living in N’Djamena, told AFP.
“They said all Nigerian refugees are Boko Haram and should leave their country. They took our biometric data,” he said. “They warned that whoever returns and is caught will spend 20 years in jail.”
On Saturday, the Nigerians said, Chadian customs agents took them to the Nigerian border town of Gamboru.
“The mass arrests started on Wednesday,” said Ari Modu, who said he was bailed out of jail by his boss and is still living in Chad.
Some 227 people were arrested on Wednesday, Modu told AFP. He and Musa both said that officials rounded up another 371 people on Friday.
“The police carried out a roundup of individuals in an irregular situation, regardless of nationality, who were subsequently escorted to the border,” Paul Manga, deputy director general of Chad’s national police, told AFP. “This is not a witch hunt.”
Cameroonian authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nigeria’s jihadist conflict has for years presented security challenges in neighbouring countries as militants have spread to Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
Nigeria, for its part, has also moved in recent years to repatriate its citizens from Chad and return them to their homes.
However, ex-refugees interviewed by AFP last year said that upon returning to their home villages in northeast Nigeria, they found themselves on the front line of a violent conflict.
In safer, larger cities, they face unemployment or poverty amid a weak economy.
Some ended up crossing back to Chad, where they had lived and worked for a decade.
Nigeria has been experiencing a jihadist terrorism since the 2009 Boko Haram insurgency began, which has spiralled into factions of militants that have spread across Niger, Chad and Cameroon .
AFP
