Ghana Marks Africa Refugee Day

Accra, June 20, - Africa's hosting of the world's largest number of refugees does not mean her leaders are interested in strifes and wars, Nii Okaija Adamafio, Minister of the Interior, stated today. He said the causes of strife and conflicts, which create refugees, are rooted in the historical experiences which divided Africans. Africans constitute six million of the world's estimated 21.8 million refugees, attracting 35 per cent of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) budget. He was speaking at a ceremony to mark this year's Africa Refugee Day in Accra, under the theme: ''Together in the Search for Solutions''. ''We have to revisit the Conference of Berlin some 100 years ago when the current map of Africa was drawn dividing ethnic groups and forcing unions into groups that were antagonistic to each other. ''We have to cast our minds back to the post-independence era and the cold war period in which our countries became pawns in the super power games to the extent that genuine aspirations of our people were suppressed in the name of the fight against or for communism''. He, however, noted that some of the policies which were pursued by some African governments were misguided and created social tensions which were heightened by the unjust economic relations between the developed North and the under-developed South.