In the town of Kasoa, a small city in the West African country of Ghana is the refugee camp designated to refugees from Liberia. The civil war in Liberia is one of the bloodiest wars the continent of Africa has ever seen. Over 200,000 people were killed and millions were forced to seek refuge in neighboring countries. One of those countries is Ghana: located in the western part of Africa with Togo to its east, Burkina Faso to the north and cote Devoir to the west.
My first encounter with a refugee was in high school in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Back in high school I was the president of the Muslim Students’ Association at my school and my predecessor, Mohammed Donzo, was a refugee from Liberia. Donzo came to Ghana when he was less than ten years old. In the midst of the war, he found himself separated from the rest of his family, and moving from one neighboring country to the other, he finally came to Ghana. Life outside home was very difficult for Donzo: sometimes he slept outside at the mercy of the adverse weather, with no one to feed him, Donzo did all kinds of jobs to feed himself. But one thing he priorities was education. He saved every penny just so he could enroll himself at school. And as a friend who has been inspired by Donzo, I could bear witness that Donzo has made it to high school.
But Donzo is “lucky” in some way compared to his colleagues who had no choice but to live in the camp provided by the government of Ghana called the Bujumbura camp. Established in 1990, the Bujumbura is the home for 15,800 refugees from Liberia. All refugees are protected under the laws of Ghana. The 1992 constitution in Ghana extends to the refugees its fundamental rights “including life, dignity, and the protection from torture and slavery, freedom of movement and the right to work” according to the UNHCR. But what the government of Ghana does not adequately provide are basic necessities like food, good shelter and health care. In order to meet the needs of their daily lives, many refugees are forced into unhealthy acts like prostitution. There are also, some reported cases of rape in the camp. In 2008 for instance, “there were 17 cases of rape, statutory rape, and sodomy in Bujumbura refugee camp” according to the UNHCR.
In the February of 2008, several women began a sit-in protest to “Either demand a resettlement to a developed country or an increase in the repatriation allowance given by the UNHCR.” The UNHCR offered $50 to every child and hundred dollars to every adult, but the refugee were asking for at least a $1,000. after a month of protest, the police arrested 800 refugees, mostly women, and 39 of them were sent back to their home country of Liberia.
These are some of the challenges faced by both refugees and the countries in which they reside around the world. In Ghana, the living conditions of refugees are far from better. Both the government and the UNHCR could certainly do better by providing good shelter, food and adequate health, but they simply can’t meet all the needs of the refugee. Everybody must lend a helping hand to help rewrite the dreams of these unfortunate victims of war.
By: Mohammed Adawulai
Souces: United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, World Refugee Survey 2009 – Ghana, 17 June 2009, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4a40d2a675.html [accessed 14 March 20
