Monrovia – The Executive Director of the Liberia Refugee Repatriation Resettlement Commission or LRRRC, Rev. Fetus Logan, has disclosed that there are over 11,778 stranded Liberian migrants living in the sub-region.
Report by Edwin G. Genoway, Jr. [email protected]
He said Liberians are stranded in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Guinea, Algeria, Libya, Senegal and the Ivory Coast.
Making the disclosure at the Information Ministry on Thursday, April 19, Logan said over the years, the Government of Liberia assisted the return of more than 2,282 stranded Liberian migrants from the sub-region including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Guinea.
The LRRRC has started working with the International Organization Migration, Liberia Immigration Services and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to set up a technical working group that will establish contact with their embassies in the region to share with them the manifest of the stranded Liberian migrants living in the sub-region, he said.
However, Logan added that there are also 11,261 documented refugees living in Liberia. More than 10, 700 Ivorian Refugees are in Montserrado, River Gee, Nimba, Grand Gedeh, and Maryland Counties, while 63 are various nationality refugees, 33 asylum seekers and 374 Sierra Leoneans.
“In keeping with our mandate, the LRRRC is in close partnership with the UNHCR and other humanitarian partners from 2010 to 2018. We have repatriated 221,000 out of 244,000 Ivorian refugees; we also assisted the return of 16,000 of the 36,000 of Ivorian refuges,” he noted.
He said the Government and UNHCR are in the process of providing local integration for 10,791 Ivorian refugees who are living in Liberia.
The LRRRC boss said the commission will work with the Ministry of Information, Cultural and Tourism and the Press Union of Liberia to facilitate assimilation through awareness campaigns, prints and electronic media engagements, stakeholders’ dialogues, and community outreach activities to promote local integration in the host communities and counties of the refugees.
“The LRRRC and UNCHR will be engaging national government on the issue of Prima Facie and other program related constrains to ensure the smooth implementation of Local integration in Liberia,” he said.
Meanwhile, Logan said US President Donald Trump and his administration have reached the decision to end the Temporary Protected Status or TPS program that has allowed about 3,600 Liberians to stay in the U.S for two decades, giving them one year from now to leave the country or face deportation.
TPS beneficiaries have until March 31, 2019, change their immigration status, leave the country or are deported.
“LRRRC and LIS have set up technical working group that is developing a comprehensive master plan to address the DED program,” he said.
The LRRRC boss also said disadvantage youths who many refers as Zogos can now be refer to as the National Internal Displaced Persona (NIDP) With special needs.
He said the NIDP with special needs are people who are directly associated with drug abuse, selling drugs, producing drugs or importing drugs, and some enforcement officers who are in contact and conflict with the law.
He disclosed that a good number of these women, youth and children were cast into new and unfamiliar roles, saying, “Taking up arms to protect themselves from sexual violence during the war, to becoming the main bread winners for their families.”
Theses vulnerable young people find themselves lost in a jungle of unskilled and directionless unemployment thus roaming the streets daily doing petty trade, picking pockets, and some are even selling their bodies as means of sustaining themselves.