Some Cameroonians arrived on Thursday 14 July at Douala international airport from Niger after spending months for some and years for others trying to reach Europe via North African countries.
They come in addition to the thousands of Cameroonian candidates for illegal immigration who have returned freely to their country of origin, thanks to the joint initiative “EU-IOM for the protection and reintegration of migrants”.
This initiative is a project requested by the Cameroonian government and implemented since 2017 by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), with funding from the European Union (EU) Emergency Trust Fund for Africa.
It aims to strengthen migration management and respond to the urgent need to protect and save the lives of migrants along the Central Mediterranean migration route, while ensuring the sustainable protection, return and reintegration of those concerned.
Since its creation, 5,468 Cameroonians have returned “voluntarily and safely”, IOM says. “Four thousand of them have received economic, social and/or psychosocial reintegration assistance. A temporary reception site for voluntary returnees has been rehabilitated and equipped,” said IOM’s Head of Mission in Cameroon, Abdel Rahmane Diop, at the launch of capacity building sessions for the project’s actors on 6 July in Yaoundé.
