Update – 6,000 Displaced Nigerians Return From Niger

Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on Wednesday confirmed the return of over 6,000 Nigerians who had fled to neighboring Niger at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency in the country's restive northeastern region.



The announcement came shortly after the relief agency said that 3,000 Nigerians had returned home from Niger.



"We just received communication from Nigerien government that another set of 3,000 persons are being sent to us," NEMA Director of Search and Rescue Charles Otegbade told reporters in Geidam, a border town in northeastern Yobe State.



"We will be going to the border post to take custody of the people," he added.



"We are not ruling out the possibility of the figure growing beyond 6,000 by the end of today," Otegbade said.



The NEMA official said the agency would arrange for the returnees to be transported to their various states across Nigeria.



"We are going to remain in Geidam as long as it takes to evacuate the people back to their respective states," he said.



"Geidam is acting as a transit town and we have two camps, one at the stadium and the other at a primary school in the town."



NEMA spokesman Manzo Ezekiel told AA on Tuesday that at least 2,000 Nigerian children – currently residing at refugee camps in neighboring Niger – were scheduled to soon be repatriated to their home country.



He said NEMA officials would receive the children in Yobe State, one of the three northeastern Nigerian states worst hit by the years-long Boko Haram insurgency.



The children were among tens of thousands of Nigerians who fled the country at the peak of militant violence that ravaged the region between 2009 and 2014, when the group frequently carried out indiscriminate attacks.



The Nigerian military – backed by Nigerien and Chadian troops – recently liberated all territory captured earlier by Boko Haram in Nigeria's Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.



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