LAGOS—Nigeria has
repatriated around 11,000
foreigners mainly from Niger
and Chad over the past six
months to curb a growing
Islamist insurgency, the
immigration services said,
Monday.
”The latest number of
foreigners repatriated as at
this morning is 11,000,”
immigration services
spokesman, Joachim Olumba,
told AFP, updating an earlier
figure.
He said: ”The bulk of them
are from Niger and Chad.”
The Boko Haram Islamic sect,
blamed for dozens of attacks
in the country that have
claimed hundreds of lives, is
thought to draw some of its
members from neighbouring
countries.
Olumba said the repatriation
“has been intensified in the
past six months following
the Boko Haram insurgency,”
adding: “We have an
obligation to rid the country
of undesirable elements.”
He said immigration officers
last week caught 120 people
trying to enter illegally from
Niger “and we quickly sent
them back to their country”.
Boko Haram’s gun and
bomb attacks have shaken
Africa’s most populous
country which is divided
between a mainly Muslim
north and predominantly
Christian south.
Its base is in northeast
Nigeria which borders
Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Violence blamed on Boko
Haram, whose specific aims
remain largely unclear, has
since 2009 claimed more
than 1,000 lives, including
over 300 this year alone,
according to a tally by AFP
and activists.
The sect has previously said
it wants to create an Islamic
state in Nigeria’s deeply
impoverished north.
Nigeria’s military authorities
last week said Boko Haram
has ties with Al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb.