Of Refugees And Voters
By Mohammed L Sillah and Mbaye B sarr
Oct 2, 2006, 16:36 |
The UNHCR Banjul office has promised to distribute food supplies to refugees fleeing massively into The Gambia from the war-torn southern Senegalese province of Casamance. This was disclosed on Thursday September 28th by the Commission’s Chief of Mission Mr. Ron Mpanda. The disclosure was made following allegations that thousands of refugees, staying under difficult conditions in Foni’s and Kombo East districts, have been neglected by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
Thousands of refugees have been fleeing into The Gambia since March 2006 when renewed fighting broke out between secessionist rebels and Senegalese government troops. The nearly two-year lull in the fighting between the two protagonists was rudely broken when fighting flared up again in February 2006. It started when Guinea Bissau authorities tried to throw the rebels out of its territory along the border with Senegal. The Southern Front of the MFDC rebel movement, which has been fighting for Independence since 1982, has been, since the beginning of the war, operating from Guinea Bissau territory. Its leaders are constitute the more extremist wing of the rebel movement and have rejected all attempts solve the protracted conflict peacefully. Talks with Senegalese authorities, which had been going on between the Zuingiunchorr-based moderate leaders and the authorities in Dakar, had to be suspended due to divisions within the rebel movement.
Last year Guinea Bissau leader Nino Vieira won the elections and returned to power promising to flush all rebels from his country. A spill-over effect of the Casaamance rebel war plunged neighboring Guinea Bissau into a bitter civil war that led to the fall Mr. Vieira’s almost twenty year rule at the end of the 1990s. On his second coming into power therefore, President Vieira pounced upon the rebels with extra zeal. He made his declaration of war while on a state visit in Nouakchott last February. Only a week after Guinean troops surrounded rebel groups in Sao Domingo, a Guinean town not far from the border with Senegal. After about two weeks of fighting, the surrounded rebels were able to break free and fled north towards heading for Senegal’s border with The Gambia.
Since then, war has been ravaging villages lying along the Gambian border emptying villages of people and keeping Gambians in nearby villages sleepless amidst the nocturnal din of gun fire. Thousands of people have so far fled into The Gambia, getting shelter from villagers. Some village headmen have been complaining about how far the limits of their accommodation resources have been stretched.
Our correspondent in Banjul, who has been following the war since its resurgence in March, has been to many villages on the Gambian side of the border, including Arankon Kunda, Sohm, Bwiam, Wassadu in the Foni districts, and Kafuta in the Kombo East, only to name a few. At the last named village he met about six hundred and seventy refugees, mainly women and children from the Casamance villages of Kabakel and Pukenne during the weekend of 16th and 17th September. 2006. At that time, our correspondent talked to one Kajali Badjie who told him that they had just arrived the previous night. Mr. Badji and his two wives and seven children, and three in laws walked the four-kilometer distance from their village. He said he thought all the surrounding villages had been deserted, with many running to Bingona. He expressed his dismay at the way they wer3e treated, saying that they had so far not been given any help by any institution. All assistance they had been given had been from the villagers in Kafuta. Mr. Badji said that they had not even been registered. Asked who he though was fighting who in the current fray, Mr. Badji said that the fight was a three-way affair involving two rival rebel groups and Senegalese government troops. He alleged the fighting within the rebel camp was between forces loyal to eminent rebel faction leader Salifou Sadio and others following Zakaria Dieme and Alexandra Djibba. Asked if the later faction was helping government troops, Mr. Badji said he did not think so. Many of the refugees listening to the interview, our correspondent said, nodded their heads in confirmation of. Jaques Sanneh, also from Kabakel said he did not think the fighting was going to end soon and unless they are helped very soon, they would be in dire straits. He said they had left everything behind when they were forced by the rebels from their villages. Surpprsingly enough Mr. Sanneh thought that livestock left behind would be safe. “Salifou’s men are not bandits, they were just trying to save us from ending up in a cross fire”, Mr. Sanneh said. Few nodded this time and some looked uneasy at Mr. Sanneh’s assertion. A women intervened to say that Jaques was saying this because they send out scouts to see if their properties were in tact. The same woman then changed the topic, changing into salvos of verbal attacks against the UNHCR. In her view, The Whites abroad must have sent the assistance already but the Blacks at the local office here want to deprive them of the help.
In response to the queries relayed to him by our correspondent, the UNHCR boss Mr. Ron Mpanda said that he understood that because of their distress, the refugees were jumping into conclusions too prematurely. He said his office, together with UNICEF and WHO, both United Nations bodies, had to carry out an assessment exercise that would establish what and how much the refugees needed. He said his office and the Red Cross have together registered over five thousand refugees. Food distribution he promised, would begin by the 1st October, that is today, and an order of other items has been placed at their regional warehouse in Accra.
But when our correspondent returned to Kafuta on Monday 25th September to link the refugees to some representatives of a Muslim Charity organization who were willing to assist, and to inform the refugees of Mr. Mpanda’s promise, almost all of them had disappeared into the thin air. There were no more than three sick old women who were not too keen on communicating with them. A native villager said that the refugees had “gone to Bakau and Serekunda.” “To vote in the elections ?”,he could not help asking loudly.
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