Cameroon, Nigeria Negotiate Ex-Boko Haram Militants' Return

MAROUA, CAMEROON - During a visit to Cameroon, Nigerian officials Thursday asked for the return of more than 1,000 former Boko Haram militants to Nigeria. Hundreds of the Islamist group’s former fighters have surrendered in Cameroon since May, when the terrorist group’s leader was killed.

Umar Usman Kadafur, the deputy governor of Nigeria's Borno state, greeted former Boko Haram militants at the disarmament center in Meri, a town near Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria. He spoke with the militants in Hausa, a language used in northern Cameroon and southeast Nigeria. Kadafur visited Cameroon’s Far North region on Thursday, and led a delegation of 14 Nigerian lawmakers, lawyers, administrators and rights group representatives, to negotiate the voluntary return of former Nigerian Boko Haram militants. Among the former militants attending the meeting where Kadafur spoke was 34-year-old Kadir Hassan. Hassan said he escaped from the Sambisa Forest, a Boko Haram stronghold on the Cameroon-Nigeria border, in August.