We're Afraid of Nigerians, They're Killers - Kinambaye

Friday February 19, 2016

MABASS, Cameroon — Sneaking up at night, Boko Haram militants last month converged on the Nigerian border village of Roumsi, overrunning a small military outpost and setting villagers’ huts ablaze.

Cameroonian soldiers watched helplessly from their own outpost on a rocky escarpment above. They were barred from crossing the border to repel the extremist group, which last year became Islamic State’s “West Africa Province.”

“All night, we just heard the cries down below, and we heard how people were being slaughtered,” said Ndahou Ricko, who heads the village self-defense committee in Mabass, about 2 miles from Roumsi.

Most survivors of the killings in Roumsi that night escaped into Cameroon, adding to the tens of thousands of Nigerian refugees already here—and to a growing political problem for this Christian-majority country.

Many other Nigerians have fled to nearby Chad or Niger, or to safer parts of Nigeria. They are part of an estimated 2.6 million people displaced by Boko Haram’s insurgency.

The exodus of refugees from Islamic State-controlled areas, particularly in Syria, has become an issue in the U.S. presidential election and even more of a sensitive problem in Europe. Fears about terrorist attacks by Islamic State members posing as refugees have spiked following the Nov. 13 massacre in Paris. 

But the vast majority of these refugees, in the Middle East or in Africa, head for countries in their immediate neighborhood.

Here in northern Cameroon, the worst fears have come true: Since last summer, Boko Haram followers have committed more than 40 suicide attacks, usually against civilians.

Some of the recent bombers were Cameroonian, often girls who were likely coerced. But many slipped into the country from Nigeria, using the refugee flow as cover. That, in turn, has radically altered local attitudes toward their neighbors.

“We are afraid of Nigerians. These people come here to kill,” said Gaston Kinambaye, manager of the ramshackle Bar Beau Sejour in Maroua, the capital of Cameroon’s Far North—a mixed Muslim-Christian region where Boko Haram violence has been concentrated. In July, suicide bombers killed some 20 people just outside his bar.

“If we see any Nigerians, we will catch them,” added Hamado Zuheil, who sells rat poison.

Najat Rochdi, the United Nations resident coordinator in Cameroon, said the stigma now attached to Nigerian refugees is complicating efforts to help them.

“Unfortunately there is a confusion: You are seen as a suspect just because you are from Nigeria, especially since the suicide bombings began,” he said. “What we have to remind is that these people are victims.”

Boko Haram started off more than a decade ago as a Nigerian insurgency against the central government of that country. Only recently did it spread into neighboring countries.

“We are the collateral victim of this situation,” said Rene Sadi, Cameroon’s minister of territorial administration, whose responsibilities include oversight of local governments and refugee affairs.

Most Nigerian refugees in Cameroon are in the giant Minawao camp set amid the scrubland of the savanna. A labyrinth of tents of various shapes and, increasingly, more permanent buildings, Minawao holds 53,000 people and is growing. “It is a real city,” said the administrator, Bayang Bouba.

For Cameroonian officials, Minawao is also a growing security risk.

“There is no doubt that there is Boko Haram activity in the camp. We know that they have sent all their family members over there for safety,” said Lt. Col. Leopolde Nlate Ebale, head of operations for the Cameroonian special-forces task force overseeing the most sensitive border areas with Nigeria.

Several recent suicide bombers have been in touch with cellphone numbers operating inside the camp, he added. “It’s a beachhead.”

In recent weeks, Cameroonian officials repeatedly rounded up Nigerians in the area who aren’t registered in the camp and deported them to relatively safe areas of Nigeria farther south.

Camp officials say they screen all newcomers for militant links, using testimony by other Nigerians. The camp, however, is unfenced and people come and go at will, especially at night.

Waiting at the screening area on a recent morning was Haruna Gadawua, 40 years old, from the Nigerian village of Kohom. Spotting Boko Haram fighters approaching his home and fearing for his life, Mr. Gadawua said he jumped out and fled to the forest.

His 30-year-old wife, pregnant at the time, his two children and his mother remained inside. When Boko Haram fighters left later that night, Mr. Gadawua’s wife, Ramata, was gone, too.

“I heard from the children they said she would be coming with them to do God’s work,” Mr. Gadawua says. It has been a year since then, and he still has no news about his wife’s fate.

Nigerian refugees in Minawao say they know of no Boko Haram sympathizers or agents among them.

“Boko Haram killed my two brothers,” said Adam Bakar, 23. “We have all had to flee from the village because if we had stayed, they would have killed us too.”