NIGERIA: BAKASSI ATTACKS RESULT IN REFUGEES

C O N F I D E N T I A L LAGOS 000211 SIPDIS DOE FOR GPERSON TREASURY FOR DFIELDS, RHALL, COMMERCE FOR KBURRESS STATE PASS USTR FOR ASST USTR FLISER STATE PASS OPIC FOR ZHAN AND MSTUCKART STATE PASS TDA FOR EEBONG STATE PASS EXIM FOR JRICHTER STATE PASS USAID FOR GWEYNAND AND SLAWAETZ E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/13/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREF PHUM KDEM NI SUBJECT: NIGERIA: BAKASSI ATTACKS RESULT IN REFUGEES Classified By: Acting Consul General Helen C. Hudson; Reasons 1.4 (B,D) 1.(C) Summary: From 1,500 to 2,000 refugees have abandoned their homes in the Bakassi Peninsula in the wake of a reported retaliatory action by Cameroonian police, according to Cross River Government and NGO sources. The action, which the Cross River official said "must have been brutal" was in retaliation for an attack on June 9 by youths reportedly opposed to the handover of Bakassi to Cameroon on August 14. The Cross River official indicated that the State had provided the refugees with food and blankets. End Summary) ¶2. (C) An NGO contact Theo Osin Oyuko (protect throughout), Executive Director of the Cross River State Youth Assembly, an NGO, told Pol-Econ Chief June 12 that youths in speedboats and a gunboat attacked Cameroonian gendarmes (Note: Post understands gendarme to connote police in rural areas. End Note) on June 9. Three gendarmes, including a popular colonel, were killed. The Cameroon gendarmes retaliated, rounding up all the able bodied young males in the area (by this contact's estimate 300-500) and detaining them. The NGO contact reported that more than 2,000 women, children and elderly men, fearing further retaliation, had fled to the village of Ikang, where they are currently sheltered in a primary school. According to Oyuko, the youths who perpetrated the attack did so to protest the return of the peninsula to Cameroon. They had already fled the area when the roundup began, and he believes they are planning another attack to free the youths in detention. In a conversation on June 14, Oyuko said he had heard that the youths would collaborate with Niger Delta militants to free the youths. Oyuko noted that the Cross River state government had sent officials to look into the situation, but that the state is grossly unprepared to deal with the people in Ikang, who brought nothing with them. ¶3. (C) In a June 12 conversation, Nzam Ogbu, Chief of Staff to the Governor of Cross River State, confirmed the sequence of events described by Oyuko. He estimated that the number of individuals sheltering in the Ikang primary school was approximately 1,500. The Cross River State government has provided the group in the primary school with blankets and food, he alleged. Asked about the roundup of youths, the Commissioner indicated that it "must have been brutal" for so many persons to have fled their home villages. He could not say exactly where the roundup took place. (Note: Under the terms of the 2002 Green Tree agreement, the Bakassi Peninsula completes its transfer to Cameroonian control on August 14. End Note) He said he has also heard of attacks on Nigerian fishermen in Nigerian territory. ¶4. (U) The Saturday, June 14 edition of The Guardian reported over 3,000 refugees living at the Government Primary School in Ikang. The article also reported interviews with refugees who claimed that the Cameroonian soldiers had burned their homes and boats, and that Cameroonian soldiers had gathered at Isangehle and brought in a gunboat at Wanjo. An article in the Sunday, June 15 Vanguard reported that five persons died in the retaliation action, and an additional 15 persons fleeing in boats were drowned when their vessels capsized. HUDSON