Some Liberian refugees in Ghana have staged a protest against the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the West African nation over resettlement package.
Local media Citi FM reported that that some of the refugees who are homeless have camped themselves at a police station in an area called Cantonment to agitate over how they have been treated.
Ghana for decades served as home to thousands of Liberians who fled civil war in their country from 1989 to 2003.
The Ghana refugee board and the UNHCR have already implemented a repatriation program to ensure that Liberian refugees who were housed at the Budumburam refugee camp in the Central Region either return to their home country, or any place of their choice. They rest who choose to stay in Ghana were to be resettled.
Ghanaian officials have already started pulling down structures at the Budumburam camp, an exercise that has rendered scores of these refugees who are yet to return to Liberia homeless.
Citi FM reported that the refugees claimed they haven’t been re-settled despite a promise to do so since 2012. The news portal shared pictures of these refugees camped at the police station.
The leader of Liberian refugees at Budumburam Camp, Moses F. Anderson is quoted by Citi FM to have said that the refugees “were in a camp and the UNHCR turned the camp over to chiefs, so they were breaking down the houses… Since 2012, they should have resettled us. But up till present, each time they say go and come.”
Anderson said their protests were against “the UNHCR for our global solution, which is the resettlement… We are not protesting about the land issue. We are basing it on our resettlement that UNHCR has for us. They have given the integration people their package. Those that went home, they gave them their package too.”
Source: Africafeeds.com
