Around 28,000 people have fled from conflict-torn Central African Republic to neighboring Cameroon since the start of this month, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.

"The new arrivals from CAR are living in appalling conditions. Most of them lack food and shelter," said Dan McNorton, spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR).

Nearly 9,000 people, mainly Muslims, have fled to Cameroon in just over a week to escape communal bloodshed in the Central African Republic, the United Nation's refugee agency said Friday.

In the past 10 days alone, 8,762 people have crossed into eastern Cameroon from strife-torn Central Africa, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba told reporters in Geneva.

Officials in Spain on Friday denied security forces had fired rubber bullets at migrants trying to swim to Spanish soil, after nine Africans drowned in the attempt.

The nine, including one woman, drowned on Thursday while trying to reach the Spanish territory of Ceuta from a beach in neighbouring Morocco. Other migrants tried to storm through a land checkpoint.

The banned Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram on Wednesday said it had released a French Roman Catholic priest on compassionate grounds but insisted that no ransom had been paid.

The militants, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, claimed responsibility for kidnapping Georges Vandenbeusch, who was seized from his parish in northern Cameroon on November 13.

A French Roman Catholic priest abducted in Cameroon by Islamic militants arrived home Wednesday after a seven-week ordeal he described as a time of "terrible boredom, sadness and anger."

Georges Vandenbeusch, who was freed on Tuesday, touched down at the military air base of Villacoublay near Paris, where President Francois Hollande greeted him and hailed his "courage" and "self-sacrifice".

A French Roman Catholic priest abducted by Islamic militants in Cameroon was released on Tuesday after a six-week ordeal.

Georges Vandenbeusch, 42, was kidnapped on November 13 by heavily armed men who burst into his parish at night in the far north of the central African country and reportedly took him to neighboring Nigeria.

Boko Haram is holding a French priest who was kidnapped in northern Cameroon, a source in the banned Nigerian Islamist group said on Friday, rejecting claims of a rift among the insurgents.

"I can confirm that the French priest is in the hands of mujahideen (fighters) from Jamaat Ahl al-Sunna Li Da'wat al-Jihad, who carried out the operation that was coordinated with Ansaru," he told Agence France Presse.

A French priest was kidnapped overnight near Cameroon's border with Nigeria in an area designated as dangerous for foreigners, French authorities said on Thursday.

Georges Vandenbeusch was abducted near the town of Koza, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Nigeria, the French foreign ministry said in a statement.

Cameroonian President Paul Biya's ruling party, in power for three decades, kept its grip on a massive parliamentary majority by sweeping up 148 of 180 seats, official election results showed Thursday.

However despite the victory, Biya's Cameroonian People's Democratic Movement (RDPC) lost five lawmakers compared to the 153 seats held previously.

Cameroonians voted Monday in polls designed to shore up the parliamentary majority of President Paul Biya's ruling party and consolidate his three decades in power, as international observers complained of irregularities.

Voting in the central African country ended at 6:00 pm (1700 GMT), but few people were observed casting ballots by an Agence France Presse correspondent in the capital Yaounde as the final count began by candlelight.