The Politics of the African Refugee Problem: the Case of Refugees in Ghana

For some years now, the African continent has seen a lot of refugees thrown up by various forces and this has affected nearly all the countries on the continent. Refugees have been forced to seek asylum in various countries across Africa. They have been received by African countries struggling to implement IMF\World Bank sponsored programmes of economic idjustment. Ghana has for sometime now hosted refugees from various countries. This thesis attempts to find out the causes of the flight of three groups of refugees to Ghana, namely refugees· from Southern Africa, .Liberia and the Sahel Zone; how they have iurvived in the country, the kind of assistance they have received and official policy towards asylum and residence. The results of the study show that the. Southern African refugSes were forced into exile by the apartheid system in South Africa and the system of apartheid and colonialism in Namibia. The refuqees from Liberia have been forcSd te flee due to the struggle for the state started against the late President Samuel on~ and which has ended in a long drawn out civil war. The refugees from the Sahel have been forced to flee the drought and famine, which is the result. of the decision of the gavernments of the zone, ta follow a development strategy which tended to degrade the Sahel, environment.The three groups o+ re+ugees have received di+ferent levels of assistance. The refugees from Southern Africa have been relatively .better assisted. The refugees from Liberia have not been accorded +ormal refugee status but are being treated as de facto refugees ...