The Executive Director of the Human Rights and Governance Centre, Martin Kpebu, has questioned the planned demolition of the Buduburam Camp.
Government is set to demolish about 141-acres of the camp following claims that it has become a den for criminals.
Mr. Kpebu believes the said criminals will only move to other parts of the country when the camp is demolished.
The residents of the refugee camp have been protesting the planned demolition.
Some of them besieged the Gomoa Buduburam Police Station on Tuesday, September 28, 2021, to register their displeasure about the move.
The demolition exercise, according to local authorities, could happen anytime soon, as September 30 marked the deadline for the period given the inhabitants to vacate the camp.
Speaking on Citi TV/FM’s current affairs program ‘The Big Issue’, Martin Kpebu, who is also a private legal practitioner, said the core of the issue should rather be dealt with.
“Well, if this move is centered on reducing the rate of crime in the area, I don’t think it’s going to yield much results. Chiefs complain that Kasoa is a crime-ridden area, and so the immediate step was to move these people out. But when we disperse them this way without making proper provisions, it will come back to haunt us. When we evacuate them without deporting them back to their countries, they will settle in other places in the country. We have not solved the problem, we will only be shifting the problem around.”
“We have to make proper plans. The DCE has to hold his horses, have move consultations and dialogue on the matter before actions are taken. Most importantly, I also think the IGP should be involved in the discussion. Have we involved him in the decision, and what is his view on this? Has he been given room to find a way of addressing the crime rate in the area? If we haven’t done that, I don’t think it’s time for us to uproot them like cassava.”
The government recently gave the green light for portions of the camp to be demolished.
Residents have thus been asked to vacate the area immediately.
Liberian refugees and other residents at the camp say they have no money to find new homes.
The Buduburam Camp became the home of Liberian refugees after it was opened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1990.
It was initially home to some 12,000 refugees.
It also houses refugees from Sierra Leone who fled their country’s civil war between 1991 and 2002.
