WEST AFRICA: Voices from exile

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, has appealed to international donors not to cut back on aid to humanitarian programmes amid a global financial crisis that has shuttered financial institutions in rich countries. At the conclusion of UNHCR’s annual meeting in Geneva from 6-10 October, Guterres said refugees remain the most vulnerable victims of the global economic fallout.

According to the UN 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is someone outside his or her country owing to a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” IRIN met three refugees last week throughout West Africa; their stories from exile follow.

Lupube Therese, 49, Democratic Republic of Congo, fled to Douala, Cameroon, in 1998 where she lives with five of her eight children and three grandchildren.

A five-year conflict from 1998-2002 in the Democratic Republic of Congo claimed an estimated five million lives. More than one million Congolese are still displaced, including 400,000 refugees.

“When Laurent Désiré Kabila came to power [in 1997], my husband, who worked for [Mobutu Sese Seko’s] old regime, was arrested, tortured and thrown in prison. We sought refuge in Cameroon for fear of reprisals. My husband escaped from prison and joined us.

“Things are bad. We’ve been thrown out several times because we hadn’t paid the rent. Now, we live in a two-room house, without doors or windows, and are exposed to mosquitoes and to floods. The children are weak because they’re not eating properly. I haven’t cooked for a week.

“Once a month we get a hygiene kit and two pieces of soap [from UN and Red Cross]. One of my daughters has got a study grant and I’ve been given business support [micro-loan] of US$150, but that money will most likely go towards paying our overdue rent. I stay in Cameroon because there’s nothing better. Where we live, the people aren’t nice. I can’t see us going back to our country because we’re scared of revenge attacks.

“I dream of settling in a developed country where life would be easier.”

Abdourahmine Filah Djalloh, 34, Sierra Leone, has lived in Guinea since 1998.

Come 1 January 2009, UNHCR will no longer consider him and some 14,000 other Sierra Leoneans scattered throughout West Africa as refugees. A 1991-2002 civil war killed thousands of people and forced tens of thousands into hiding. President Ernest Bai Koroma won an election that international observers judged to be free and fair in September 2007.

“Since I became an urban refugee [left UN camp to move to the capital, Conakry] I no longer received clothing or food from the UN. But if I am ever sick, the UN still helps me. I make it with odd jobs in plumbing, welding, and as a taxi driver. I could not return to Sierra Leone now, which is foreign to me after all these years here in Guinea. I think I will do better to stay here in Guinea, even though it was so difficult for me when I first arrived. When you live somewhere where you do not speak the language, there are always problems and misunderstandings. But that is the challenge of integration.”

Amadou Samba Ba, 43, Mauritania, has been living in Dodel, Senegal, since 1989.

Hundreds of black Mauritanians were killed and tens of thousands fled ethnic purges during security crackdowns in the early 1990s by Mauritania’s Arab-dominated government of Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya. Starting January 2008, some 4,000 refugees started returning to Mauritania in UN-convoys. But Ba, who oversees one of 276 Mauritanian refugee settlements along Senegal’s border, told IRIN the 6 August military coup in Mauritania froze repatriation.

“I refuse to send anyone from my camp back to Mauritania. There is no guarantee for our safety. We were chased out by a military regime and promised a safe return by a democratically-elected civilian leader [President Sidi Mohamed ould Cheikh Abdallahi].

“Why would we go back when it is once more a military junta?"

“Hundreds of youths are pouring back into Senegal because there were not enough classrooms or teachers to serve the influx. So once more, they are coming back to the camps. We have been here for almost 20 years. We have not had UN assistance since 1995, but we prefer to be here in Senegal than [to live] under military rule again.”

IRIN