UNHCR Clarifies Refugee Doubts

The Refugee Protection Officer at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has warned Sierra Leonean refugees intent on resettlement overseas that there is no mass resettlement for them.

Fatou M.A. Barry of UNHCR said in her office at Kotu that the rumour making rounds within Sierra Leonean refugee community about plans to resettle them overseas is not based on any fact. She said: “The programme at hand now is integration. Their people were repatriated although earlier on others went for resettlement. For now, it is integration since refugees cannot return to their home country for fear of one persecution or the other.”

She noted that the High Commission is acquainted with refugees’ desire to resettle but said that UNHCR after consultation with the countries concerned, they realised that it was difficult to influence them to change already adopted policies.

Madam Barry therefore alluded to the idea of integration into the Gambian society, saying that integration would entail getting refugees their national passports, an arrangement long reached with the refugees’ home countries to provide passports for their citizens, complete with the required stamp, Work and Residential Permits for three years. Thereafter the refugees would renew their documents by themselves. The UNHCR official affirmed that the office would be holding a meeting with refugees before the end of the year.