President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime says it will help thousands of Nigerian refugees in Chad and the Niger Republic.

Specifically, Sadiya Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, stated this in Abuja when a delegation from the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva paid her a courtesy visit in her office.

“Being the coordination agency, the Ministry has facilitated the adoption of National Policies including the IDP policy which incorporated the provisions of the Kampala Convention,” the minister stated. “The policy is an overarching framework that guides operations while ensuring a coordinated and coherent approach.” 

The minister added that the federal government “is presently hosting a large number of refugees from neighbouring countries, and we are working hard in collaboration with UNHCR to provide adequate protection to the refugees and the asylum seekers.”

The leader of the UNHCR delegation and Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, Raouf Mazou, commended the Nigerian government for the tour of IDP camps in Maiduguri.

“This visit is first, to express our solidarity. This is a difficult situation. In Borno particularly, there are close to three million internally displaced persons,” said the UNHCR boss. ”From the Humanitarian point of view, this is a very serious problem that the country is facing, which requires the support of the international communities.”

Concerning the Nigerian refugees, the UNHCR official noted, “We also came to discuss with the state government of Borno on the return of some refugees. In the Niger Republic, there are 170,000 Nigerian Refugees and 16,000 in Chad.

”Some of them may want to come back to Nigeria, so how do we ensure that they can come back and what form of support systems and security needs to be in place for them to come back.”