Liberia: Liberia Returnees Network Criticizes Government for ‘Poorly Managing’ Buduburam Refugees’ Repatriation Process

Monrovia — The Liberia Returnees Network (LRN), a non-governmental institution aims at seeking the welfare of refugee’s activities in Liberia, has expressed frustration at the administration of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai for leaving them out of the repatriation process of refugees from the Buduburam Refugees Camp in Ghana. 

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By: J.H. Webster Clayeh (0886729972)-[email protected]

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LRN, established in 2012, is comprised of ex-refugees who returned to Liberia after the country’s long civil unrest. 

Since 2012, the organization has advocated for Liberian refugees to get their just benefits before and after the repatriation from Ghana, Guinea and other African countries respectively.

In May 2021, a video was posted to social media by CitiTube, a local television station in Ghana and in that video, the Gomoa Fetteh Traditional Council said many of the crimes committed in nearby cities were linked to persons inside the Buduburam Camp and so place should be demolished. 

In August 2021, the Ghanaian President 

Akufo Ado gave the green light for the demolition exercise of the Buduburam Refugees Camp. 

After instruction from the Ghanaian President, the Executive Director of the Liberia Returnee Network, Emmanuel T. Marshall, called on the Liberian government and other international partners to ensure that refugees have a smooth return to their motherland.

“We are calling on the government of Liberia, the embassies near Monrovia, UNHCR, IOM, the United Nations and all international partners to help in this regard. We hereby launch our home back home campaign to raise the amount of US$383,000.00 to be used to purchase land, to build 152-bedroom house each, partly furnished, transportation for returnees back home, resettlement package, transporting of personal belongings of returnees,” Mr. Marshall said in 2021.

LRN has purchased a 10-acre land space in Bomi County for the construction of housing units for Liberians refugees in nearby countries.

All of the call from the Liberia Returnees Network were down played by the Boakai-led government, LRN said.

In March 2024, the first batch of approximately 750 Liberian refugees from the Buduburam Refugees Camp in Ghana came back home. The subsequent group of refugees also followed. 

Since the return of refugees, there have been several protests against the Boakai’s administration for refugees’ benefits. 

Speaking to FrontPage Africa over the weekend, the Executive Director of the Liberia Returnees Network Marshal said his institution is upset over government refusal to have them in the repatriation process of refugees from the Buduburam Refugees Camp in Ghana. 

“The refugees coordinator, on the other hand, expressed intense frustration in her line of duty over the blunt refusal by the government to recognize and partner with the LRN,” Marshall said.

He added: “Since the onset of the advocacy of the Forgotten Generation of the Liberian Refugees in 2020 and because of the refusal, the intervention of LRN into the refugee’s issues from the early stage was refuted by the various institutions responsible for refugees in all of the countries within the sub-region where Liberians sought refuge from the bloody civil crisis

since 1990.”

According to the LRN, it anticipates that the government will change the ongoing strategy of handling the repatriation process of refugees. 

Marshall also stressed that the proper facilitate that is needed for returnees’ safety and wellbeing should be overlooked by government. 

“The repatriation exercise is a full package, a process in which LRN,

from the onset, has been prepared to implement, but the government has not opened up its borders of incorporation

toward LRN and so till yet, the rightful steps of the reintegration and rehabilitation of the returnees into the Liberian society are not being taken, therefore plunging the returnees into an even more dangerous state in their country of origin than what they experienced in Ghana,” LRN boss said.

Marshall added: “In light of all of these hitches and poor coordination of the government to fully cater to the returnees, the management of LRN has decided to act on its own henceforth, instead of pleading for or anticipating a hand of partnership from the government, to give the returnees what they deserve for their survival.”

“The question remains – is the government waiting for another demolition exercise in Guinea and Waterloo before it can shamelessly and forcefully take its citizens back home?” Marshall asked.