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Refugees ask for political asylum

    ABIDJAN

    Some 97 Sierra Leonean refugees living at Oru camp in Ogun State, some 120 km from Lagos, have asked the federal government for political asylum to avoid repatriation, `The Guardian' reported.

    "We cannot go back now. If we do, we shall be killed," the newspaper reported, quoting a letter addressed to President Olusegun Obasanjo and signed by Alpheus Rogers on behalf of the refugees.

    A UNHCR official in Lagos expressed surprise that the students had written such a letter to the president.

    "Most of the refugees living at Oru camp are students," Marie-Jose Santos Kpakpo, UNHCR's Administrative and Programme Officer in Lagos told IRIN. "They wrote to us saying that they wanted to go home so that they could start the new academic year in January," she added.

    There are currently some 1,600 Sierra Leonean refugees in Nigeria.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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