Ivorien refugees relate their plight: ‘I have not seen mummy for over 3 months‘

Tadaferua Ujorha who was in Liberia and Cote d’  Ivoire A mixed crowd of men, women and children are walking along the road which   is still wet from the morning rain. They drag their bodies, force their bodies along the road as though they had lost the will to walk, as though they had lost […]

Tadaferua Ujorha who was in Liberia and Cote d’  Ivoire

A mixed crowd of men, women and children are walking along the road which   is still wet from the morning rain. They drag their bodies, force their bodies along the road as though they had lost the will to walk, as though they had lost the will to move. A funereal silence hangs in the air. The inanimate road is happier than the crowd walking on it. At Bahn the human body becomes a kind of burden, a sort of weight that must be pulled along. Here, body and spirit are unwilling. These are the most recent refugees from Cote d ’Ivoire to arrive at the Bahn Refugee Camp in Liberia. There is much greenery in the camp, as well as winding roads, little valleys and countless white shelters for its 4,000 or so inhabitants. It’s a seven hour drive to Bahn from Monrovia as the hired car traverses both good and bad roads. It’s another 7 hour journey back. The terrain and its   population continue to fascinate the visitor. The people on the road are a crestfallen group and are silent. Heads are bowed as though searching the earth for some treasure, while some shiver for it is cold. Then somebody sneezes. The heads are bent downwards. A little girl points upwards at something of interest. Her mother is deep in thought, and the girl feels snubbed by her silence and makes a face, which the reporter sees and almost photographs. A few voices express themselves in French and in some of the many enchanting dialects of Cote d’Ivoire. Then they   continue to move along. They   drag their bodies into the camp which is richly supported by UNHCR, Save The Children, Red Cross and MSF, among  other aid agencies.

Hadjarataou’s pain

Among the crowd there was one that stood out, for she didn’t look crestfallen, and quickly attracted the interest of the reporter, who asked the interpreter to speak to her. She was regal in gait, speech and composure, and held her head up, in spite of the party of bowed heads to which she belonged. This is a tall lady walking along with a smaller girl whom she held by the hand. Her name is Doumbia Hadjaratou and she is 16 years old. She is in the camp with her sister, 5 year old Doumbia Kadidja. Doumbia Hadjaratou has not seen her parents for several months now, she tells Weekly Trust ‘One day there was a fight in Abobo, a part of Abidjan. I was with my mother when the fight started. By the time it was over I had fled in one direction, and my mother had fled in another. That’s how the separation took place. My father had earlier left the house to look for provisions, and we also haven’t seen him since’. I am here together with Kadidja, my little sister.’ She adds sadly ‘I have not seen mummy for over three months’. She says that she arrived the border on April 12, and that the UNHCR brought her to the Bahn Refugee Camp. Quite naturally she says that she is not willing to return to Cote d’Ivoire just now. Doumbia Abubakar, her father, is a taxi driver, or at least he once worked as a taxi driver in Abidjan, she says. Doumbia Mama is her mother. It was natural to assist Hadjaratou with some Liberian Dollars as Weekly Trust did all over the camp. Later she buys a Lollipop, one for herself and one for her sister, and moves about with a little more animation.

Gondo fled

Next is Gondo Albert 48, who once worked as a school teacher in Danane, a part of Cote d’Ivoire. His story is a remarkable one: He was a supporter of Gbagbo in Danane, and he had a brother who was pro Quattara. At a point his own blood brother had to torture him on account of their differing political choices. Under torture his brother forced him to accept the results of the elections. So Gondo fled and ended up at Bahn, with just 2 trousers, two shirts and 155 CFA. His house in Danane has been burnt and he is trying to pick up the pieces of his life in Bahn. He says he fled without his family, some of whom are in Abidjan.Just like Doumbia Hadjaratou above, he was taken to the camp by  the UNHCR.He says that when conditions improve in Abidjan he will certainly return there. Gondo says that Gbagbo would make a good leader, and compares him to Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, while hailing him as a Pan Africanist.

‘He’s Burkinabe’

Tra Mondesir is a 38 year old Biology teacher, that is, until he fled to the camp. He says that he was abused and tortured by the LRDP which is President Quattara’s party.He arrived Bahn on 18 March this year, and adds that he is not willing to return to Cote d’Ivoire just yet.His reason:’ My name is on the blacklist in Abidjan, so I won’t go back yet. I will be here for another 5 years.’He declares ‘The president of Cote d’Ivoire is a Burkinabe, and I don’t want to be ruled by a foreigner. I participated at his father’s funeral in Burkina Faso when I was a schoolboy there’. Tra is trapped in a special mode of thinking, which has worsened rather than reduced the Ivorien crisis.

‘I won’t go back now’

Gowoke Therese was born in 1973. She is in the camp with four of her 6 children. The remaining two are with her husband in Cote d’Ivoire. According to her there was a gunfight in Goulaleu, Cote d’Ivoire between two rival groups. Thereafter, she and her children fled, leaving her husband to search for the other two children who were in school at the time the fight started. She is not willing to return to Cote d’Ivoire just now. Her words ‘This is because during the first war in 2002 the people who crossed to Liberia were called back. They returned to Cote d’Ivoire and were suddenly caught in a fresh crisis in the country. They suffered a lot at the time. I don’t want to be caught in such again.’She is not satisfied with the Bogo wheat (Bulgaria Wheat) which the refugees are given at the camp. She says Ivoriens were used to a better diet in their country. She informs Weekly Trust that there is no light at the camp, and that the refugees use lanterns at night. Also they are neither given meat nor fish. She laments that they have insufficient salt in their diet.

‘In Africa, we don’t do politics’

Kazroa Michael, 37, is a teacher married with 6 children.’ He was initially President of the youth who support Gbagbo in Zouanhounien, the part of Cote d’Ivoire where he had lived in and worked. But in the camp he has surprisingly come to embrace Quattara. His words ‘In Africa we don’t do politics. We express our feelings not the democratic feeling, but our base feelings. However if the matters are resolved, I can go back home.’ He makes insightful comment on President Quattara. His words ‘I don’t recognise him, but he is President of all Ivoriens .I am Ivorien, and I must participate in the development of my country. Even if people don’t want it, Quattara is President today, and we must support him. We need to help him as a people, irrespective of our differences’. Ounze Clarisse is Kazroa Michael’s wife. She complains that the people in the camp are given Bogo wheat to eat which is new and unusual to them. There is the additional burden of a lack of kitchen utensils. At Bahn Refugee Camp 300 persons make use of 2 toilets, the inhabitants tell me.

A single mother’s struggle

Aisha Traore is another refugee in the camp. We come across her at the camp market where quite a number of refugees are gathered. They buy little meals and are trying to laugh as they compare notes. She is a single mother looking after two children at the camp.She cooks a simple meal for the camp dwellers, and the income derived helps to support Aisha and family. But she will not go back to Cote d’Ivoire for obvious reasons, just now.She dwells at the camp with Mariam and Bintu Traore, her two smiling daughters.

I have been here before

AHG Nestor is the Chairman Bahn Refugee Camp. He says that he has endured much from the wars in Cote d’Ivoire. It is a path he raced along in terror in the past. Fate has made him run along the same path again with an equal degree of terror. Life for him is akin to a film which he has watched several times over.  His words ‘I have suffered from the wars. I came here in 2002 as a refugee. Then I went back. Now, after nearly ten years, I am back again. I was the first person to enter Liberia as a refugee in 2010. I crossed in to this country on November 28 at a place called Kissiplay. We were the first refugees to enter Liberia, and  I will be the last to leave , because I lost all my properties in the Ivorien crises’.

A   Coast for refugees

The Camp Coordinator who works with the Norwegian Refugee Council has lived as a refugee in 4 countries at different times. These include Togo, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. The point may indicate that West Africa has a high turnover rate for refugees. Or that social and political situations along the coast can produce hundreds of refugees at the drop of a hat. Has  West Africa become  a coast for refugees? The coordinator says that there are 700 shelters in the camp which houses approximately 3,561 refugees today, excluding the 125 that arrived the camp about a week ago. There are at least 50 other camps in Liberia set up by UNHCR   where refugees from Cote d’Ivoire   are free to go to.

An official close to the government in Abidjan indiates to Weekly Trust that the situation in the country is improving, and that very soon the refugees will return to a stable country.