Government officials on Saturday visited camps in Mubi, Adamawa, where over 12,000 Nigerian refuges repatriated by the Camerounian authorities are temporarily camped, awaiting screening to ascertain their states of origin.

The officials were drawn from the federal, Adamawa and Borno State governments.

The Director General of National Emergency Management Agency, Alhaji Sani Sidi, who led the delegation, also addressed the deportees.

He said that they were in the state to officially receive and sympathise with the victims.

Sidi said that government was aware of the victims’ living conditions, adding that efforts were being made to provide necessary and emergency relief assistance to them.

“The agency and the affected state governments had prepared vehicles to convey you to designated Internally Displaced Persons Camps in Yola; while in the camps, you will undergo screenings in order to identify the areas where you come from.”

Sidi said that 95 per cent of the IDPs were indigents of Borno, who hail from Gamboru, Ngala and Bama.

Alhaji Zanna Mustafa , the deputy governor of Borno, also addressed the IDPs.

Mustafa told the IDPs that after the screening in Yola, the Borno Government would transport indigenes of the state to Maiduguri, to link them up with their families.

He advised them to expose any member of Boko Haram living among them.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that 80 per cent of the IDPs are women and children.

NAN further reports that NEMA expressed concern over the way and manner the IDPs were repatriated by the Camerounian authorities. (NAN)

•File photo shows NEMA officials transporting refugees to their homes.

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