GHANA-POPULATION: Denied Refugee Status for Walking Too Far

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

ACCRA, Dec 3 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) has refused to grant refugee status to some 200 Sudanese, many of whom said they walked and hitchhiked to Ghana, more than 4,000 kilometres from their country.

Ron Mponda, UNHCR legal officer here explained that the UNHCR would be breaching international regulations governing refugees if it were to recognise them “because these people have crossed over five borders to reach Ghana.”

Mponda told the state-run Ghana News Agency last week that under existing regulations, one can seek refugee status only in a neighbouring country unless that nation, too, is experiencing political unheavals.

He said the Sudanese could have gone to one of nine neighbouring countries, which were all at peace. “I see no reason why they should travel all the way to Ghana,” Mponda was quoted as saying by GNA. He advised the refugees to call at the offices of the Ministry of the Interior here “to be assisted to go back home.”

But Garang Adwok, who passed through Chad, Nigeria, Benin and Togo before arriving in Ghana, said that allowing themselves to be repatriated to Sudan was tantamount to committing suicide.

“The regime in Khartoum is brutal and does not care about international opinion. If we are deported to the Sudan, we shall immediately be detained and possibly executed,” he told IPS.

Some of the refugees, including Adwok, said they first walked to Chad but could not seek asylum there because the regime in N’djamena does not tolerate refugees from Sudan, with whose government it has extremely good relations.

“We couldn’t even show our face in the UNHCR offices in N’djamena (the capital of Chad) because once you do, you are arrested, detained and deported to Sudan,” said George Lado, another refugee.

From Chad they walked, worked and hitchhiked their way across the Sahel. They said they were attracted to Ghana by its political stability and the fact that English is its official language. They had not wanted to settle in Chad, Benin, Niger, or Togo because of the language barrier. All four countries are francophone and none of the refugees speak French.

They also ruled out Nigeria because of its political instability and high crime rate.

But in Ghana, things have not worked out the way the refugees had hoped. They have no decent place to stay and they have not been receiving food aid or medical assistance from the UNHCR since they began arriving here a year ago.

One of their number has contracted tuberculosis (TB) and has no money to seek medical treatment. “The UNHCR says it will only provide medicine assistance to those who have collapsed of illness,” said one of the refugees.

“Thank God that our children haven’t fallen ill since we arrived in Ghana three weeks ago,” Adwok said, when IPS visited him. He, his wife and their five small children sleep under trees outside the Holy Spirit Cathedral here, braving Accra’s heavy tropical downpours.

“We have been chased out of the church compound by Catholic officials. As a result, we decided to move by the roadside here. And over there is where my children and I sleep,” he said, pointing to the heap of dirty blankets and sacks that make up their personal belongings.

The Adwok family and the other Sudanese here left their country because of a 13-year civil war between Sudan’s Arab/ Muslim- dominated government and mostly Christian rebels in the south. The conflict has forced about 367,000 Sudanese to flee their nation. Most are in Uganda, Zaire, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Another 3.1 million internally displaced civilians are being assisted by Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) — a consortium of UN agencies and some 40 international and local NGOs — which provides relief supplies and is helping to rehabilitate southern Sudan.

More than one million other Southerners have fled to the north where they have been settled in squalid shanty towns in the outskirts of Khartoum.

“We are completely embarrassed because the UNHCR has denied us,” said Lado, who arrived in Ghana in December of last year. “And the Ghanian government is not clear about our case. We would have preferred to be repatriated to a third country for resettlement if they don’t want us in Ghana.”

Recently, several Sudanese refugees who fled from Liberia to Ghana were resettled in the United States. UNHCR officials here suspect that the newer arrivals might have come to Ghana in the hope of finding refuge in North America.

However, the refugees deny any knowledge of the resettlement of Sudanese in the United States.

They also said they recently had a meeting with Ghanian Secretary for Refugees Abdulahi Bawumia in the Ministry of the Interior here. “We met with him. He told us that they are forming a committee to look into our problem,” said Charles Taban, another member of the group.

“We are waiting to see what the Ghanian government will do for us,” said Ayuel Atem, another Sudanese.

Ghana, which hosts some 15,000 Liberians, appears reluctant to take in more refugees. In mid-year, Accra turned back a boatload of Liberians trying to seek refuge in Ghana.

Helped by no one, the Sudanese try to fend for themselves, but it’s not easy.

“There is no work in Ghana,” said Lodyong Medi Wani, who stays with 20 other Sudanese in a makeshift hut near a hotel here. “The only job we do is that of a farm hand. But now the farming season is over. Some of us, those lucky ones, engage in construction work. That’s how we earn our living.”

“We help one another,” he told IPS. “That’s the secret of our survival.”