Cameroon-Nigeria Panel To Start Demarcating Border

UN-Sponsored Cameroon-Nigeria Panel To Start Demarcating Border Next Month

The United Nations-sponsored Cameroon/Nigeria Mixed Commission will start a pilot field project next month to assess conditions along the formerly disputed border between them, the UN Office for West Africa (UNOWA) said today.

Surveyors, cartographers and other technicians from Cameroon, Nigeria and the UN will deploy in the field for one month starting 7 March, travelling to highly inhospitable areas such as high mountains and thick jungle to assess the terrain and gather all the information necessary to identify individual pillar sites and boundary points, UNOWA said.

A meeting is scheduled to take place after the completion of the pilot project in April and the field assessment will continue along the entire border later this year, UNOWA said after the Commission's Joint Technical Team met last week in Abuja, Nigeria.

Concrete pillars will be placed along the border, beginning in 2006, and contractors were already preparing bids for preliminary work, UNOWA said.

The Commission was set up to assist the countries implement a ruling in 2002 by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the 1,600-kilometre border, which passes through oil-rich land and sea.

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