No fewer than 100,000 Nigerians taking refuge in Cameroon have been deported since 2015, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its latest report.
The deportation which was carried out despite pleas from human rights groups, HRW said, was in violation of international and Cameroonian laws.
“Cameroon’s army has been aggressively screening newly arriving Nigerians at the border, subjecting some to torture and other forms of abuse, and containing them in far-flung and under-serviced border villages,” the report said.
“This policy of blocking asylum seekers from accessing protection has made it easier for Cameroon to deport them,” it said, adding that the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) had been denied access.
The exercise, it said, also constituted one of the world’s largest recent cases of illegal forced repatriation contributing to the humanitarian crises in the world.
This is because those deported were sent back to the North East of Nigeria which is grappling with humanitarian problems caused by the effect of the activities of the terrorists group, Boko Haram.
Cameroonian authorities declined comment when approached by the news agency, Reuters.
Nigeria is still struggling to cope with millions of people dependent on emergency relief for food, shelter and medicine among others as a result of the effect of Boko Haram activities.
No fewer than 25,000 people, HRW claimed, had been killed as a result of terrorism.
Resurgence in the insurgency by Boko Haram in the last six months is reported to have claimed more than 750 lives.
According to the United Nations at least 10.7 million people are in need of assistance in the region, mainly in Nigeria.
Others are in Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
A UNHCR spokesman in Nigeria’s capital of Abuja declined to comment, and the agency’s representative in Cameroon did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Cameroon signed a treaty in March with Nigeria and the UNHCR to ensure that all refugee returns are voluntary but the rights group said Cameroon’s violations had continued.
Cameroonian soldiers tortured, beat to death and sexually exploited some of them, said HRW.
“They humiliated us like animals and beat us like we were slaves,” one interviewee told the rights group.
His brother died from resulting internal bleeding, he said.
Some deportees, including children, were so malnourished or sick they did not survive their return to Nigeria, said HRW.
