Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Dr Peter A. Wiredu, Acting Director of Immigration, on Monday called on staff at Ghana’s frontiers to continue to diligently collaborate with the UNHCR, to professionally screen asylum seekers.
“Refugees, are people fleeing their home countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution and, therefore, are to be given special attention and treated with civility and warmth,” DCOP Wiredu said in a statement issued in Accra to commemorate World Refugee Day on June 20.
This year’s World Refugee Day also marks the 60th anniversary of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, aimed at helping World’s Refugees as well as other forcibly displaced people.
Ghana is a signatory to the Refugee Convention and has duly incorporated aspects of this Convention into her domestic law, which is the Refugee Law 1992 (PNDCL 305D).
The Ghana Refugee Board is a collaborative body made up of representatives from the Ministry of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Ghana Police Service, Bureau of National Investigation, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education, Ghana Immigration Service and UNHCR.
It has over the years worked to help refugees, who choose Ghana as their refuge, arising out of conflict situations in their own countries.
The statement said currently, there are about 10,095 refugees from the Cote d’Ivoire in Ampain camp in the Western Region and Fetentaa camp in the Brong Ahafo Region.
It said the Budumburan Camp is still hosting some Liberians and Ghana’s posture relating to refugees has always been that of support, and it is not surprising that some Liberians regard Ghana as their second home.
The statement said: “I wish to commend the staff at the Western Frontiers for the able manner in which they handled the Ivoirian Refugee crises”.
“It is the wish of Ghana Immigration Service that the world becomes a more peaceful place for all, so that the instances when people have to leave their home countries in traumatising and humiliating circumstances will be a thing of the past,” it said.