STORY: Cameroon received 12,000 Nigerian refugees in 2023: UNHCR
SHOOTING TIME: Dec. 21, 2023
DATELINE: Dec. 23, 2023
LENGTH: 00:00:49
LOCATION: Yaounde
CATEGORY: SOCIETY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of UNHCR representative Olivier Beer talking to journalists
2. various of Minawao refugee camp

STORYLINE:

Cameroon has received 12,000 Nigerian refugees in 2023, according to the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR.
   
Minawao camp, the only official refugee camp in the country's Far North region, hosts about 70,000 Nigerians seeking shelter from violence in their homeland, the UNHCR said in a statement Thursday.
  
The new arrivals could strain the capacity of the refugee camp, Olivier Beer, the UNHCR representative in Cameroon, told a press conference in the capital, Yaounde, calling for solutions, including speeding up repatriation of refugees willing to return home.
   
"There are about 14,000 refugees who want to return. Next year we will advocate to have a tripartite meeting between Nigeria, Cameroon and UNHCR to start thinking about the process of repatriation," Beer said.
   
Cameroon hosts 488,500 refugees and asylum-seekers mainly from the Central African Republic and Nigeria, according to the UNHCR.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Yaounde.
(XHTV)