UNHCR, Liberian refugees in Cote d’Ivoire on war path

UNHCR, Liberian refugees in Cote d’Ivoire on war path

Liberian refugees in Abidjan have refused to vacate the office premises of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), daring the authorities to evacuate them with force.

The refugees forced their way into the compound of the UNHCR headquarters for refuge at the height of the Ivorian political crisis, but turned down offers of repatriation and a directive to vacate the premises. 

The West Africa office of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that tension continues to build between the UNHCR staff and the refugees as the Ivorian political crisis begins to simmer.

“They have taken us hostage. Our office is not a refugee camp,’’ says the Country Director of the UNHCR, Jacques Franquin.

Franquin said that the refugees in the premises of the UNHCR depended on a single toilet and a bathroom, while sleeping on the floor for more than three months in makeshift tents.

The refugees said their number climbed to about 740 in the compound at the height of the political crisis and there was an outbreak of cholera as the rains set in, in March.

The UNHCR boss said the number of refugees was less than 740 as many were repatriated and returned to their country in March and May, while the others refused to leave.

Franquin said the UNHCR had not been able to create a camp site for the Liberian refugees because the neighbourhoods always rejected the setting up of Liberian refugee camps around them.

He said: “Each time we tried to find a site to set up a camp for the Liberian refugees in the vicinity of Abidjan, the population always say no. Not the authorities, but the population.

“They tell us that they don’t want community of Liberians close to where they live and in the meantime, we are cornered. We have no solution.’’

The UNHCR country representative said some Liberians were repatriated to the United States in 2005 and in 2006 from Cote d’Ivoire, but such options were closed after the democratic elections in Liberia.

He said the Liberians were still under threat in Cote d’Ivoire because former President Laurent Gbagbo hired mercenaries from Liberia who killed many people during the five-month political crisis.

Alibi

The Chairman of the Liberian refugees, Jerry Ferguson, said the UNHCR authorities issued threats of forcefully “throwing out all the refugees after some agreed to be repatriated’’.

Ferguson said: “the country representative said he would use Ivorian Republican Army to drive us out of the building and we are waiting for the army. We are not thieves. We are not mercenaries. We are only victims of the Liberian and Ivorian political crises with our full refugee status and we must be treated as human beings.”

He said most of the refugees in the compound fled Liberia as children and had lost contact with their “roots and links’’ in their country.

Ferguson said the refugees ran to the UNHCR on Dec. 15, 2010, to seek refuge as the tension over the elections mounted and they received threats.

Meanwhile, the UN, the UNHCR and the Ivorian government said Liberian mercenaries were hired by the former president and were responsible for many deaths, especially in the western part of the country.
The UN operations in Cote d’Ivoire  says more than 3,000 persons were killed in the crisis with 244 West African nationals from Liberia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Guinea falling victim.

NANQasim