When Refugees Don't Go Home: The Situation of Liberian Refugees in Ghana

Abstract

When conflicts end the expectation is that the refugees generated by the conflict would repatriate home to be part of the postconflict peace building and redevelopment of the country. This does not necessarily happen with all refugee situations. The article looks at the situation of Liberian refugees who have refused to repatriate from Ghana since the conflict in their country ended. There have been United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees-led repatriation efforts which have not succeeded in getting all the Liberian refugees to repatriate. These refugees have however rejected local integration and rather prefer resettlement in a third country of asylum in North America or Europe. This article looks at the politics of what happens when refugees do not repatriate after the end of conflict in their country of origin. The view of this article is that when the international community secures the end of the conflict they ought to go on further to help secure rehabilitation and evelopment of the country concerned. When this fails, some of the refugees would use the dire situation of the country in the postconflict peace-building phase to refuse to repatriate and create all manner of problems for their host country of asylum.