Stranded Sierra Leoneans Seek Refugee Status

Accra, (Greater Accra) Nov. 7 Four hundred out of the 700 stranded Sierra Leoneans, who were invited to Ghana by the United States Embassy in Accra to obtain diversity visa 97 lottery, have now formally applied to the government to grant them refugee status. The application, channelled through the African Commission on Health and Human Rights Promoter (CAPSDH), was dated October 20. In their application, signed jointly by Mr Ibrahim Sessay, and Ms Josephine M. Serry-Kamara, chairman and secretary, respectively of the stranded Sierra Leoneans, they said they all won the lottery at home but were directed by the US embassies in Freetown and Conakry to come to Accra as a result of the May coup in Sierra Leone to obtain the visas. Unfortunately, the US embassy failed to grant them the visas and this affected those whose wives and husbands are already living abroad in the US, they said, adding that some of the married couples also came with their children aged between one and 18 years. Giving the reasons for their application for refugee status, they said ''we cannot return to Freetown or our various villages in Sierra Leone because of the continued state of insecurity and renewed fighting between the monitoring ECOMOG II and members of the coup leaders. ''Secondly, we have exhausted our resources and some are only expecting that their sponsors would send them some money from abroad''. In his covering letter to the Ghana Refugee Board, Dr Edmund N. Delle, President of CAPSDH, commended the Sierra Leoneans saying they have behaved exceedingly well since their arrival on September 21. ''We accordingly recommend that they be accepted as refugees in Ghana and recognised as such until the situation in Sierra Leone improves''. He said now that the US DV '97 programme is effectively closed, the original reason for coming to Ghana no longer holds for some of them. Again, because of language difficulties for them in Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire, they cannot go there, Dr Delle said. Meanwhile, one of the stranded Sierra Leoneans, Mrs Hawanatu Conteh, gave birth to a baby boy at the CAPSDH rehabilitation centre last October 26. Both mother and baby are doing well. According to Dr Delle, the health care and up-keep of the Sierra Leoneans has so far cost more than 30 million cedis.