164 detainees returned from Cameroon

A total of 164 Nigerians who had been detained in neighbouring Cameroon for between one and 12 months were returned to their home country on Tuesday following diplomatic intervention, Nigerian officials said. Staff of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) of Nigeria, who received them, said they had been variously seized by Cameroonian security police while fishing or farming in and around the disputed Bakassi Peninsula. The ownership of that narrow strip of land, jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, is being disputed by Cameroon and Nigeria. The returnees, including women and children, arrived in the southeastern Nigerian port of Calabar in a Cameroonian-registered ship. Officials said that Nigerian diplomats in Cameroon had obtained agreement on their release last month. "We are going to provide them temporary shelter and feed them," Eze Udemezue, a NEMA official, told reporters at the Calabar port. "We will call in medical doctors to check their health, and ensure they get back to their relatives." One of the returnees, Boniface Etim Okon, said he was arrested, along with several other people, by Cameroonian gendarmes on 2 April while they were out fishing in the waters around Bakassi. The Nigerian group was accused of espionage, and five of their number died in detention, Okon added. The situation in the southern border region between Nigeria and Cameroon has been tense since the dispute over Bakassi Peninsula flared up in December 1993. A number of skirmishes have occurred between troops from both countries. In 1994, Cameroon filed a complaint at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, in The Netherlands, over the matter. Both countries have since defended their positions and an ICJ ruling is expected before the end of this year.