Ghana: Liberians in Ghana - When Refugees Cease to Be Refugees

What next for the Liberians in Ghana who will lose their refugee status on June 30?

Perched on vast acres of land dotted with concrete buildings marked in colourful chalk, Buduburam Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, has always been a place of transit for Liberians. Camp dwellers are like expectant passengers on a flight whose destination is still undetermined. Most of them hope to land in America, or somewhere in Europe, on a resettlement package. They hope to be anywhere but here.

As I enter the camp for the first time in nearly 10 years, Buduburam looks like a town hit by the plague. It is virtually empty. In 2002, there were over 30,000 refugees at Buduburam. Now about 5,000 remain. Tens of thousands of refugees have been repatriated to Liberia since October 2004 according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ghana. Just 118 Liberians were resettled to third-party countries from 2007 to 2010.

June 30 is D-Day for refugees at Buduburam and thousands of Liberians like them throughout the sub-region and the diaspora. On that day, Liberian refugees will be stripped of the protection of refugee status. The international community now has faith that Liberia has stabilised. UNHCR-Ghana says the country has shown significant improvements in human rights, the rule of law, and procedural democracy through two post-war 'free and fair' elections. It is debatable, however, whether international benchmarks for success mean anything to those who have not touched Liberian soil in over 10 years. And one wonders if the international community consulted Liberians before deciding their refugee status would be discontinued.

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Source: allAfrica