The Refugee Crisis and the Plight of Refugees
Tuesday 31st July 2007

By Bijou Peters

Wednesday June 20 was observed as World Refugee Day. Conflicts in the countries within the Sub-region of Africa, the middle East, Sudan and Somalia have created a grave refugee crisis.

The definition of a refugee is someone who vacates his home and country and flees to another territory leaving his possessions behind because of religious or political persecutions.

Civil wars where people are brutally attacked and murdered, their homes looted and burnt down, and their women mercilessly and shamefully raped in front of husbands and their children, result in hundreds fleeing their homes to become refugees in another country. The genocide which occurred in Rwanda in 1994 and which is still fresh in our memories after 13 years, the Darfur crisis of Sudan and the strife in Somalia and other parts of Africa are vivid examples of these conflicts which have brought about the serious problem of displaced peoples or refugees fleeing for their lives.

The word refuge implies shelter, sanctuary and protection. When we escape from calamity, we seek a place of refuge, a shelter, a sanctuary where we hope to be protected. In the Holy Bible, the psalmist refers to God as a refuge where we find shelter and protection from our enemies and to whom we turn when we face danger and persecution. God is described as our refuge and a very present help in trouble Psalm 46 V.1.. The refuge crisis is a man-made dilemma due to man’s inhumanity to their fellow men.

Here in The Gambia a small state in west Africa, we have played host to hundreds of refugees who have sought refuge here from the Casamance, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau in recent years during the devastating conflicts in those countries. In Sierra Leone there was a mass exodus of their professionals from the country who sought refuge abroad and in The Gambia. We had our share of refugees here and Gambians opened their homes to them.

These civil wars are disastrous as they cause much hardship, suffering, displacement of peoples and wanton destruction of infrastructure, and result in impoverishment of the state. It was reported that 2,000, 000 peoples fled their homes in Darfur, Western Sudan, during their long drawn conflict which began in the year 2003, most of whom fled to neighbouring Chad which could not accommodate the large number of refugees in the country.

The plight of these unhappy people have been described as grave, and stressful. Most of them have had to be accommodated in temporary make shift shelters without proper sanitation, lack of water, shortage of food and no medical care.

Sorious Samura, a journalist from Sierra Leone decided to go and live in one of these refugee camps in the Sudan and he described his experiences there as harrowing; he did not believe that human beings could endure so much suffering. His narrative was gruelling and desperate because at that camp they had no beds and had to sleep on the bare earth exposed to insects and dangerous scorpions. They had no toilets and just had to use their surroundings as toilets, and Samura described the stench as unbearable. Due to the unsanitary conditions and the absence of medical care, he succumbed to a bout of diarrhoea which left him weak and debilitated. He almost gave up and was prepared to lie down and die where he was. He asked his Sudanese companions to continue on that journey in search of better refugee camps and leave him behind, as he was unable to move another step with them. Fortunately, he managed to recover somehow and struggled to rejoin them to reach the camp. We have seen on television the situation of refugees in some of these camps around the world – mothers carrying sick, emaciated and hungry babies. They lack basic needs of life and some are fearful of their lives even in these camps of sanctuary due to periodic attacks from rebels and militia. We cannot imagine what these people go through ; they are mostly innocent citizens who are not involved with the politics of their countries but have to suffer from the ravages of civil wars.

Displaced peoples are the result of these wars here and there, and these must stop. The UNHCR has done a great deal to help refugees with food aid but at times this programme is carried out at their own peril. The trucks are intercepted and prevented from reaching the people for whom aid is sent. Africa has had its fair share of suffering refugees, it is high time that these skirmishes ceased. Important and lasting lessons must be learnt from these sufferings of their fellowmen and any further conflicts prevented at any cost.