More than 15,000 Refugees Still in Ghana

A large number of refugees are still in the country despite favourable conditions in their home countries, relief organisations said on Wednesday.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Dr Ebenezer Quarshie Blavo, Chairman of the Ghana Refugee Board (GRB), said a large number of Liberian refugees for instance, who received repatriation packages and went back home have returned, citing insecurity in their country.

Others, he said, cited unemployment as reasons for their return to Ghana. The repatriation exercise, which elapsed last December for the Liberians, was meant to encourage them to return home to help in the reconstruction of their country.

Currently, there are refugees from Togo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan and a number of other countries and according to GRB last count, there are over 15,000 refugees in the country. The figure will be updated by the end of the month.

Dr Blavo said the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the host country lack funds for the upkeep of the refugees and has recommended some of them to be repatriated to some European countries.

"Those who are left behind will have to take care of themselves through income generating skills they have acquired or will acquire while here," Dr Blavo said. " Many others have left the camp and become part of the larger society. You cannot even count them as refugees anymore."

He said presently, some 13,474 are still in Ghana preparing for repatriation or settlement elsewhere. Dr Blavo said refugees are not above the law and when they commit crimes they must be made to face the full rigours of the law like any other person. Even though some of them have been arrested for criminal offences, it must not be used as a yard stick to judge the entire refugee or immigrant population," he said.

Dr Blavo, quoting the legal obligations of refugees under UN 1951 Refugee Convention, said they should "... conform to the laws and regulations of the country of asylum, as well as to measures taken for the maintenance of public order. It is important to note that refugees are under the legal obligation to respect the laws of Ghana."

The UNHCR said its favourable repatriation packages to the refugees, mostly from neighbouring West African countries, have produced less results than anticipated.