Burkinabè (mostly from the Fulani community) were expelled on Tuesday July 11 from Ghanaian territory. More than 200 souls, they were welcomed en masse in Hamélé and settled in transit centers in Ouessa in the province of Ioba. The regional director in charge of humanitarian action and the governor of the South-West region were on their reception site to comfort them and provide them with the best living conditions.
Having arrived en masse in the border town of Hamélé, these Burkinabè were forced to leave Ghana, where they had been living for several years. Welcomed in Hamélé and settled in transit centers in Ouessa in the province of Ioba, there are currently more than 200 people registered by the technical services.
These returnees are mainly women, children and elderly people. They are currently settled in the primary school of Ouessa. “I went to Djongo three months ago. The Ghanaians came with their trucks and ordered us to collect our luggage and return to Burkina. Some had time to take their luggage, others returned without luggage. They came to leave us here. Currently we are housed but we lack food,” explained Tall Saïdou, one of the returnees.
The technical services in charge of humanitarian action are hard at work to offer these people better reception conditions. The governor of the South-West region Boureima Savadogo went to comfort these displaced people and discussed with them their accommodation conditions in Ouessa. According to the governor, the reception of these Burkinabè compatriots repatriated from Ghana began on July 11 with 54 people. The following day, July 12, the number of returnees increased to more than 200 people received in the commune of Ouéssa.
According to Boureima Savadogo, “it is on the instructions of the highest authorities of Burkina that the reception site was set up and thanks to the support of CODESUR, food was able to be mobilized to allow these returnees to have the minimum of dignity”. “We have already identified the departure areas of many of these people who have just arrived and some are ready to return to their areas of origin; and that’s what comforts us”, explains the governor. According to some returnees and regional authorities in the south-west, as we left the scene, other convoys of returnees were en route.
According to testimonies, some deportees had been living in Ghana for several decades long before the outbreak of the security crisis in Burkina Faso. This forced return follows a forced repatriation operation launched by Ghana on July 11.
Warhanté He/Gaoua
