UNHCR completes voluntary repatriation

A total of 610 Chadians returned home from Yaounde, Cameroon, last week in the second leg of a voluntary repatriation programme, the head of UNHCR’s liaison office in Yaounde, Marcellin Hepie, said in a report on the operation. The returnees crossed into Chad on 15 and 16 August and were transported to their home areas, the capital N’djamena, and Moundou in the south. They brought to 898 the number of former Chadian refugees transported to their country by UNHCR in recent weeks. A first group of 288 volunteers from the Douala area had been repatriated in late July. Although the operation was completed successfully, Hepie said, a number of questions remain to be answered. Information was needed, he said, on the number of Chadians still in neighbouring countries, the attitude of host governments towards the integration of those who do not want to go back to Chad, and Chad’s ability to satisfy the basic needs of those who return. UNHCR plans to close several offices in Africa, including Cameroon where, according to Hepie, there could be as many as 40,000 Chadian refugees. “It is fair to say that there are hard times ahead for refugees and asylum seekers in a country like Cameroon, where there are no reliable structures to deal with refugee matters outside of UNHCR,” he said.