
SUAKOKO, Bong County – A temporary camp is being established in the Sergeant Kollie Town (SKT) Community, Suakoko District, Bong County for returning Liberian refugees from Ghana.
By Selma Lomax, [email protected]
A total of 4,300 Liberians based at the Buduburam Refugee Camp in the Gomoa East District of the Central Region of Ghana are expected to return to Liberia between May and June this year.
This forms part of the Liberian Government’s plan, through the Liberia Refugee Repatriation Resettlement Commission, to repatriate its citizens from the camp. The first cohort of the repatriation activity will take place this weekend, when 770 of them will be bussed from Ghana to Liberia.
This was disclosed at a pre-departure engagement between representatives of the Liberian Government and the Liberian community at Buduburam.
The Liberia Camp, also known as Buduburam Camp, is a refugee camp established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1990.
The 144-acre camp housed more than 12,000 Liberian refugees who fled their country during the first Liberian civil war between 1989 and 1996 and the second Liberian civil war from 1999 to 2003 as well as Sierra Leone refugees who fled their civil war between 1991 and 2002.
The Deputy Minister of Legal Affairs of Liberia, Jeddi Armah, who led the Government delegation, said this was to bring to closure Liberian refugees living in Ghana. He said the conversations around the repatriation process had been held and agreed on between the two countries, Ghana and Liberia, since 2021.
“We have had fruitful engagements and discussions with the Ghanaian government throughout this period and they have been giving us the necessary and needed support to undertake this exercise,” he added.
Mr Armah urged them to seize the opportunity and return to Liberia, saying the Government had made provisions for their smooth repatriation and stay in their home country.
He said the camp was established as a safe haven for them during the war, thus, it could no longer be a choice to stay in a place that was only meant to provide them a temporary sanctuary.
Construction of temporary camp underway in Bong
The Executive Director of (LRRRC), Patrick Worzie, said construction work of the temporary camp was launched by the government.According to Worzie, 770 families will be accommodated in the SKT camp.
Worzie said the purpose of the construction of the camp was to provide facilities to the returnees; food and non-food items and medicines would be distributed to them in this shelter. Worzie said the refugees are expected to be in Bong on Thursday in SKT. “The process is underway in SKT.
With just a day to go before the arrival of the refugees in Bong, a visit at the camp shows that the LRRRC is racing against time to complete the construction of the camp.
FrontPageAfrica observed that the LRRRC hasn’t completed the construction of temporary shelters for returning refugees despite assurances to the media that the camp would be completed by Wednesday.