The Price of Being an African, Much More a Refugee

By Lucky George

In today’s world, as an African, you are expected to be poor, not well fed and someone to be pitied all the time that requires aid without being aided. The West African sub-region is not spared of crisis just like most parts of the continent. Wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote‘d Ivore led to the forced mass movement of people, mostly women and children. Refugee camps Oru in Ogun State of Nigeria and Buduburam Camp in Ghana as well as settlements in Guinea sprang up. However today 30th June, 2008, the camps in Ghana and Nigeria officially closed down, but will technically winded up by December 2008. Lucky Onoriode George visited the two camps to gauge the mood of the refugees and to hear their harrowing experiences, failure of the relevant organizations to support them and their hope for the future.

Living as a refugee in West Africa like other places across the continent is a death sentence of a sort. Hands out can never be enough and can never be substituted for when they lived in their home environment, except when resettled in a third country, for example in Europe, Canada  and America is eventually the option.

From Oru Camp in Nigeria to Buduburam Camp in Ghana, the story is the same and the complaints are usually endless. It is either that of neglect or that of exploitation in various forms.

At Oru Camp at Ijebu Igbo, near Lagos, the trio of Mr. Reginald Gaye, Chairman of the Liberian Refugees Community, Mr Olympio Jacob, Chairman of the Togolese Refugees and minority Group, refugees from all other countries and Mohammed Mansaray, Chairman of the Sierra Leonean refugees all lament the plights of the refugee community in West Africa.

The trio went back memory lane, especially Mr. Gaye who was one of the first to arrive Oru Camp. “The refugee camp is about 18 years old having come here since 1990 when it was established. There were about 35,000 refugees then but by today this has been reduced to a mere 3,500 because many refugees have voluntarily returned home where Liberian Refugees still in majority”, he said.

In 2003 when wars broke out again in Liberia, more refugees returned again, especially those that had earlier voluntarily returned home before and the camp population swell to about 70,000 people.

That period according to Gay, Liberians were still in the majority while there were about 20,000 Sierra Leoneans and others were about 5,000. The refugees came from various countries in Africa; Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Sudan, Chad, Rwanda, Uganda, Eritrea, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), even Syria.

Looking soberly, the chairman of the camp being the head of the majority community automatically made him the overall head narrated how the only Syrian in the camp died last year due to lack of medical care.

 In 1997, 2,000 refugees left in voluntary repatriation. Spontaneous repatriation is an on-going process. For instance, 130 refugees will be left last week while another batch of 67 will be leaving next week. There were five Togolese in the camp from the beginning but now there are only three left since December 2005.

At Buduburam Camp, Aston Reeves, my guide, a father of three came to Ghana as a refugee in 1993 when he was just 17 year old. Now 34, wants to return home but to where he asked? His father died during the second rounds of fighting in Liberia in 2003 and the mother now lives in Guinea and the first child in a family of three.

Alston told of how his last brother left for the United States since August in 2003, same year he lost his father and has since turned his back on him as well as the aged mother.

Surviving according to him is by the grace of God and friends that were lucky to have settled to a third country. At Buduburam Camp, Alston works as a volunteer welfare officer. Unlike his many fellow Liberians, he was lucky to have completed his secondary education before they fled Liberia.

While in Ghana as a refugee, Alston went back to school and studied at the Ghana’s Winneba University where he obtained a degree in Teacher’s Education and now teaches at St. Burrus Memorial Academy School where he teaches Social Studies-and earn less than $20 American dollars a month.

The wife who was unable to complete her education also supports the family by doing hair plating among others to support the family. Unlike their Nigeria-based fellow refugees, Alston was privileged to have benefited from the Buduburam Refugees Education Bureau in Ghana Service provided scholarship for three years programme which today he is very grateful for.

150 other Liberians refugees benefited from the Ghanaian government gesture.  Majority of his fellow beneficiaries have since returned home and are now working with the Liberian Education Authority through UNHCR.

Other areas where Liberian refugees got scholarship according to him are agricultural science, political science and business administration to about refugees too. Looking very tired from the exhaustion haven tour the entire camp with me, he looked up and said in low tone voice that regrettably, people of college/high school  ages did not benefit from the programme, especially the vulnerable ones and the many that were orphaned by the war, while those that their parent still alive pay for them.

“I am willing to go back home, however, going back home means starting from afresh again, a risk many refugees like me are not willing to take” he said.  Like many refugees, he swore to remain in Ghana until opportunity for a resettlement in a third country arises and that his finance has improved to take care of his family, he would not return to Liberia.

At the Oru Camp in Nigeria,  Buduburam as well as the hundreds of thousands refugees living among the population in Guinea, eating a square meal a day is a struggle because according to the many refugees interviewed, UNHCR never provides enough for everyone.

On the ongoing repatriation exercise, UNHCR insisted that refugees cannot return home with more than 50kg luggage and hand bag luggage 5kg as a punitive measure, because in 2006, the UNHCR had warned that any refugee who do not return home under its initiated voluntary repatriation from June 2006 to June 2007 would not be allowed to return home with their personal belongings.

With the aforementioned causing disquiet among the refugees, they call on the Ghanaian authority to help provide transportation to enable them take home all their belongings.

Technically, the camp officially closes today June 30th, 2008, but will remain opened till December 31st, 2008.

Meanwhile as a result of UNHCR intention to close the camps in Nigeria and Ghana to forcefully end what it call a regime of refugee in West Africa according to Mr. Alphonse Malanda, UNHCR Country Representative for Nigeria and ECOWAS, schools and health services at the Oru Camp in Nigeria have been closed with the refugees themselves providing makeshift health care at the moment.

The Buduburam camp on the outskirts of the Ghana’s Capital, Accra, had the various schools at the camp closed, except those run by individuals and churches while the hospital still remained open because it being run by churches with some support by UNHCR.  Some noticeable NGOs present are at Buduburam camp; Children Better Way (CBW), Faith Foundation by a church group, St. Gregory Catholic and Caroline A. Miller.

Now, the refugees themselves are making arrangement of how their properties acquired during the 18 years stay in Ghana home. Mr. Maxwell Brown Obi, a Nigerian who has a Liberian wife is one of the few truck owners and lives in the camp with his family that routinely make the 10 days journey to Liberia.  “The journey takes so long because of the checking at the borders with each of the countries providing escort to ensure safe passage or from being attacked by bandits” he said.

Surviving as a male refugee at any of the camps or settlement is a struggle as I discovered. As for the women, it is an unimaginable experience.   I was made to understand by the young ladies themselves that they do the unthinkable.

Young ladies are impregnated without knowing who is responsible because of multiple relationship they keep just to survive in camp, damming the consequences of contracting dreaded diseases such as HIV/AIDS which an aid worker told me that rates of infection are quite very high.

Pennyoumhowe Pennine Nagbe qualified as a nurse before she fled Liberia. Today at Buduburam, she runs a small health programme where she cares for aged and children free of charge. She was rushing out to Kolebu Teaching Hospital Accra to see a patient that is on admission when I approached her for an interview.

Now 37 and a single parent to a 13 year old boy, she said living in a camp like Buduburam as a woman is hell. Without mincing words, she said the ladies are the bread winners for their families. “The ladies work to feed their families” they go out for days with various men and when they returns, they give the little they were able to make to their mums and say mummy, keep that money, its for the whole week and will be back in few days and off she went again. As a father or mother under that circumstances, what can you do, she queried?

Jolene Doe is a beautiful 25 year old beautician refugee at Buduburam camp. She said she makes about $20 to $30 a week and asked if she would be tempted if a man approached her for a fling or a week out for $50. She smiled and said ‘yes’. What can you do? That is what the situation forced on you.

According to the Oru Camp leadership, they stopped farming years ago, except for domestic consumption when they could no longer bear the ridiculous prices which the local people are buying their products after much hard labour to grow and harvest them.

Reginald Gaye, Chairman of the Liberian refugees at Oru noted that “It has been very stressful feeding ourselves. “We have survived till date by sheer tenacity and endurance”.

“We are appealing to the Federal Government of Nigeria to be kind to us and not send us away empty handed. We have been told that we will only be permitted to take only 3kg of rice or beans and other food items per head”.

“We are refugees! Why does the Nigerian Government want to dispossess us of our properties? It is not fair”.  “We are been sent back to start life afresh after eighteen years of sufferings here”.

On March 17th, 2008, the Ghanaian authority arrested over six hundred women along side some children, who dare protested against hardship at the Buduburam Camp and were detained for two weeks without being charged to court.

In West Africa presently, UNHCR said there are about 80,000 refugees in the sub-region of mostly Liberians and it is determined to ensure that in the next few years, the name refugee will be deleted from the work of the agency completely. The reason being that, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) treaty provides for free movement of persons and goods, but in reality, there are several restrictions and extortion and therefore movement within member states cannot be considered free.

Observers are of the view that UNHCR is forcefully asking refugees to return home because it can no longer cope with the cost of keeping them and because of undue political pressure from the refugees’ home states.

Whatever the reason may be, the general view is that, the Liberian refugees among others be treated fairly, justly and they be given enough time to integrate, voluntarily return home on their own or be resettle in a third country if possible because, they have suffered stigmatisation, exploitation, denied education and the constant emotional trauma they will live with for the rest of their life.