Ghanaians deported from Libya and Niger

Sixty-nine Ghanaians who set out on a journey to Libya were on Tuesday repatriated home and handed over to the immigration authorities.

The returnees mainly from the Brong Ahafo, Ashanti and Greater Accra regions, got stranded at the Niger-Libya border and the Niger authorities deported them to Burkina Faso where the Ghana Embassy in Ouagadougou arranged their passage to the Paga border in the Upper East Region.

The Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) got them transported to Bolgatanga. Addressing the deportees on Wednesday, the Regional Minister, Mr. Mahami Salifu said the government would help them to settle and re-organise their lives.

He said youth unemployment is one of the major problems the government is grappling with by initiating concrete measures to provide job avenues.

Mr Salifu cited the introduction of the emergency social relief programme as one of such measures and advised the deportees to organise themselves into groups in their various communities so that they can benefit from the fund.

"Ghana is your home and she needs you more than the place you were struggling to go'', he said, and advised them to refrain from embarking on such perilous voyages in future.

A spokesman for the group, Mr Hayford Donkor from Kumasi, said about 600 other Ghanaians are currently stranded at Droku, a village on the Niger-Libya border, with no money to pay for their passage back home.

He appealed to the Ghana Embassy in Niger through the Regional Minister to arrange for their transportation back home.