| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1992 |
| Jurisdiction | Republic of Ghana |
| Headquarters |  Ghana |
| Agency executive |
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| Website | www |
The Ghana Refugee Board was established under the Ghana Refugee Law 1992 (PNDCL 305D), and is charged with the management of activities relating to refugees in Ghana. It is under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. [1]
The main preoccupation of the Refugee Board is with refugees. Its functions include: [1]
The board also cooperates with other agencies to carry out its mandate, as it did in March 2011 faced with an influx of refugees from Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), who had fled during the Second Ivorian Civil War. [2]
The head of the Refugee Board is Chairman Kenneth Dzirasah. [3] Dzirasah was the Former First Deputy Speaker of Parliament and succeeded Emmanuel Owusu Bentil. [4]
The Budumburam Camp in the Central Region of Ghana is home to over 11,000 Liberian refugees. These refugees have lived in the camp for over two decades since they fled the civil war in that country. [5] In 2008, about 500 Liberian refugees in the camp embarked on an "indefinite sit-down strike". This was to draw attention to the perceived unsatisfactory arrangements to have them repatriated to Liberia in that year. Of the 11,000 Liberian refugees, only 198 have accepted repatriation back to Liberia as of 2008. [6]
The refugees are requesting resettlement in another country, but the Refugee Board maintains that no country is willing to accept them. The Refugee Board has now prepared plans for integrating in Ghana those refugees who are not repatriated, a move which is being strongly opposed by the refugees. [7]
In March 2011, refugees fleeing the fighting in the Second Ivorian Civil War entered Ghana. In total, some 116,000 Ivorians fled to eight West African countries, including Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Liberia, Togo, Benin and Nigeria. Ghana received 3,129 new refugees, mainly from the Ivorian capital of Abidjan and its suburbs. The UNHCR set up a transit centre at the Elubo border crossing. [8]
The Refugee Board partnered with the UNHCR and Ghanaian state agencies such as NADMO to assist these refugees. [2] After the setting up of the transit centre, the Refugee Board is looking for land to convert into a temporary shelter for the refugees, ahead of building a more permanent place in the Elembelle constituency. [9] The UNHCR also set up a refugee camp in the town of Ampain that could hold 3,000 people. [8]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with over 18,879 staff working in 138 countries as of 2020.
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a person who has lost the protection of their country of origin and who cannot or is unwilling to return there due to well-founded fear of persecution. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by the contracting state or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) if they formally make a claim for asylum.
Ivory Coast, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. With 30.9 million inhabitants in 2023, Ivory Coast is the third-most populous country in West Africa. Its official language is French, and indigenous languages are also widely used, including Bété, Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has a religiously diverse population, including numerous followers of Islam, Christianity, and traditional faiths like Animism.
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced people. Usually, refugees seek asylum after they have escaped war in their home countries, but some camps also house environmental and economic migrants. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012, the average-sized camp housed around 11,400. They are usually built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations, or non-governmental organization. Unofficial refugee camps, such as Idomeni in Greece or the Calais jungle in France, are where refugees are largely left without the support of governments or international organizations.
The Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) was a rebel group in Liberia that became active in March 2003, launching attacks from Ivory Coast. MODEL was based on the Force Spéciale pour la Libération du Monde Africain (LIMA) militia formed in September 2002 to defend Laurent Gbagbo's government against insurgents backed by Liberia's president Charles Taylor. After fighting off the imminent threat, parts of LIMA crossed the border to Liberia to continue the war there. With Taylor's forces already pressed against the larger Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), MODEL quickly gained ground. The initial leadership of MODEL came from LURD, while the majority of MODEL fighters were mobilized from Ivorian and Ghanaian refugee camps, to which many Liberians from the country's Southeast had fled.
Dadaab is a semi-arid town in Garissa County, Kenya. It is the site of a UNHCR base hosting 302,805 registered refugees and asylum seekers in three camps as of 31 October 2023, making it one of the largest in the world behind Kutupalong refugee camp. The centre is run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and its operations are financed by foreign donors. In 2013, UNHCR, the governments of Kenya and Somalia signed a tripartite agreement facilitating the repatriation of Somali refugees at the complex.
The United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) was a UN-NATO peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast whose objective was "to facilitate the implementation by the Ivorian parties of the peace agreement signed by them in January 2003". The two main Ivorian parties were the Ivorian Government forces who controlled the south of the country, and the New Forces, who controlled the north. The UNOCI mission aimed to control a "zone of confidence" across the centre of the country separating the two parties. The Head of Mission and Special Representative of the Secretary-General was Aïchatou Mindaoudou Souleymane from Niger. She succeeded Bert Koenders from the Netherlands in 2013, who himself succeeded Choi Young-jin from South Korea in 2011. The mission officially ended on 30 June 2017.
Buduburam is a refugee camp located 44 kilometers (27 mi) west of Accra, Ghana. It is along the Accra-Cape Coast Highway. Opened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1990, the camp is home to more than 12,000 refugees from Liberia who fled their country during the First Liberian Civil War (1989–1996) and the Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003. The camp is served by Liberian and international NGO groups and volunteer organizations. The Carolyn A. Miller Elementary School provides free education to nearly 500 children in the camp.
Jalozai, also Jallozai, Jailozai, and Jelazee, is a village located in Nowshera District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan. Jalozai is famous for an Afghan refugee camp which is located about 35 kilometres southeast of Peshawar near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
The 1999 Ivorian coup d'état took place on 24 December 1999. It was the first coup d'état since the independence of Ivory Coast and led to the President Henri Konan Bédié being deposed.
Kouankan is a town and sub-prefecture in the Macenta Prefecture in the Nzérékoré Region of south-eastern Guinea
Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace is a peace movement started in 2003 by women in Monrovia, Liberia, Africa, that worked to end the Second Liberian Civil War. Organized by Crystal Roh Gawding and social workers Leymah Gbowee and Comfort Freeman, the movement began despite Liberia having extremely limited civil rights. Thousands of Muslim and Christian women from various classes mobilized their efforts, staged silent nonviolence protests that included a sex strike and the threat of a curse.
Iraqis in Turkey includes Turkish citizens of Iraqi origin, Iraqi-born citizens and Iraqi expat workers.
The Second Ivorian Civil War broke out in March 2011 when the crisis in Ivory Coast escalated into full-scale military conflict between forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, the President of Ivory Coast since 2000, and supporters of the internationally recognised president-elect Alassane Ouattara. After months of unsuccessful negotiations and sporadic violence between supporters of the two sides, the crisis entered a critical stage as Ouattara's forces seized control of most of the country with the help of the UN, with Gbagbo entrenched in Abidjan, the country's largest city. International organizations have reported numerous instances of human rights violations by both sides, in particular in the city of Duékoué where Ouattara's forces killed hundreds of people. Overall casualties of the war are estimated around 3000. The UN and French forces took military action, with the stated objective to protect their forces and civilians. France's forces arrested Gbagbo at his residence on 11 April 2011.
The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) is the government agency that is responsible for the management of disasters as well as other emergencies in Ghana. The board operates under Ghana's Ministry of Interior.
The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) is in charge of the removal and deportation of illegal immigrants in Ghana.
The following lists events that happened during 2011 in Ivory Coast.
A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced, refugees, asylum seekers or any other huge groups of migrants.
The RFDG Insurgency was an insurgency in Guinea by the RFDG, a rebel group supported by Liberia and the Sierra Leonean rebel group RUF. The fighting was closely connected to the Second Liberian Civil War and the Sierra Leone Civil War and primarily occurred on Guinea's borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Beginning in September 2000, some of the most intense fighting took place around the city of Guéckédou in December, before the level of violence decreased in 2001.
| Ministries and Agencies in Ghana | |
|---|---|
| Ministry of Interior | |
| Ministry of Education | |
| Ministry of Youth and Sports | |
| Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning | |
| Ministry of Trade and Industry | |
| Ministry of Health | |
| Ministry of Communication and Technology | |
| Ministry of Defence | |
| Ministry of Transport | |
| Ministry of Energy | |
| Ministry of Food and Agriculture | |
| Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation |
|