Ghanaian Security Round Up 500 Liberian Refugee Women, Children

Reports reaching Monrovia say Ghanaian security early Monday morning rounded up an estimated 500 Liberian refugee women and children who are demanding repatriation to a third country and transported in buses to the port city of Tema.

“Around about 4.00 a.m this morning the Buduburam Refugee settlement was surrounded by Ghanaian military men, well armed with AK-7 rifles and accompanied by trucks, attacked the settlement this morning and arrested about 200 women who were among the refugee women that have been conducting the protests for one week now. They were put them in buses and trucks and taken to an unknown destination,” A Liberian student in Ghana, Jonathan Wordsworth, said.

He said as a result of the raid on the Buduburam camp, the situation at the camp was still tense.

The Deputy Director of the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC), Saah Nyumah who claimed he was contact with his Ghanaian counterpart put the number of women and children arrested to about 500.

Mr. Nyumah said the Liberians were taken to the port city of Tema and not to an “unknown destination”.

He described the demands of the striking refugees who want to be resettled to a third country or be given US1000 so that they can return to their country of origin, as “unrealistic”.

He said the Liberian government through the LRRRC is appealing to the Ghanaian police to drop whatever charges there are under Ghanaian law, against the Liberian refugees.

For the past three weeks Liberian refugee women have been holding sit in actions, demanding for resettlement to a third country, rather than be integrated into Ghanaian society.

Sources say the refugee women will be put on a ship and repatriated to Liberia.

Source African Press Agency

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