The government said on Thursday that nearly two hundred Cameroonians who were members of Nigeria’s Boko Haram jihadist group have returned home and surrendered to the authorities after breaking with the organisation.
Provincial Governor, Midjiyawa Bakari, said a total of 187 former jihadists from the district of Mayo-Sava, in Cameroon’s Far North province, gave themselves up, many of them returning from Nigeria on foot.
After surrendering to the authorities in the towns of Kolofata and Meme, they were enrolled in a programme to reintegrate them into society.
They were taken on Wednesday to a base of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MMF), an anti-Boko Haram force combining soldiers from Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria, he added.
Boko Haram’s nearly 10-year insurgency is epicentred in northeast Nigeria, but spilled over into Niger and Cameroon as well as the Far North province.