GUINEA / IVORIAN REFUGEES

As the international community focuses on ways to put to an end to the raging violence in Cote d'Ivoire, those fleeing the conflict are suffering in neighbouring countries. More than 4,000 Ivorian refugees who escaped to Guinea for a better life are now left without work, education and healthcare. OHCHR 

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:54
• Production Date: 7 April 2011
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS - OHCHR
• Subject Topical: PEACE AND SECURITY; HUMANITARIAN RELIEF; REFUGEES; DISPLACED PERSONS
• Geographic Subject: GUINEA
• MAMS Id: U110407e

Description

STORY: GUINEA / IVORIAN REFUGEES
TRT: 1.54
SOURCE: OHCHR
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 15 MARCH 2011, GUINEA

1. Wide shot, refugee camp
2. Med shot, refugee camp
3. Med shot, children playing soccer
4. Close up, tent
5. Med shot, Suleiman washing clothes
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Suleiman, Ivorian refugee:
“I don’t feel good about it. I don’t have a job. Having a job would enable me to do things I can’t do now. What I am doing? I am washing my friends clothes. Who among you would do this? No one. (Her cries)”
7. Various shots, Suleiman with High Commissioner
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“I am very disturbed to find that here in Guinea. Some of them have been here for some time, they are being discriminated, even though one or two of them is educated and has skills they can’t find employment. And I intend while on my mission here in Guinea to raise these matters with the government.”
9. Wide shot, camp area Nzerekore
10. Various shots, camp
11. SOUNDBITE (French) Nasma Camara, Ivorian, refugee:
“During the war, the rebels entered the house and assassinated people. We were scared, we were beaten there, they killed my husband.”
12. Cutaway, Nasma’s daughter
13. Wide shot, camp
14. Wide shot, refugees bathing in a river
15. Wide shot, Cote d’Ivoire border

Storyline

As the international community focuses on ways to put to an end to the raging violence in Cote d’Ivoire, meanwhile those fleeing the conflict are suffering in neighbouring countries.

Life is proving unbearable for the more than 4,000 Ivorian refugees who escaped to Guinea for a better life but they cannot get work, education and worse still they have no healthcare, all because they are refugees.

Guinea has a history of hosting refugees. It has given shelter to tens of thousands of displaced people from neighbouring Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia who fled the civil wars in their countries.

Sulieman sought refuge here in Guinea during the previous civil war in Cote d’Ivoire eight years ago.

He was fortunate to receive technical training offered by the United Nations (UN) refugee agency (UNHCR).

But that appeared to be all the luck he got in his new sanctuary. After training as an information technician, five years on, he still cannot find work. Yet all his local classmates are employed.

SOUNDBITE (French) Suleiman Jumande, Ivorian refugee:
“I don’t feel good about it. I don’t have a job. Having a job would enable me to do things I can’t do now. What I am doing? I am washing my friends clothes. Who among you would do this? No one.”

He has been at it for eight years. Now it is too much to bear for this young man whose hopes for a better life are dwindling.

He met UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, during her official visit to Guinea, where she expressed concern over the high influx of refugees fleeing insecurity in neighbouring Cote D’Ivoire.

SOUNDBITE (English) Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“I am very disturbed to find that here in Guinea. Some of them have been here for some time, they are being discriminated, even though one or two of them is educated and has skills they can’t find employment. And I intend while on my mission here in Guinea to raise these matters with the government.”

In Nzerekore a refugee camp near the Guinea border hundreds of new refugees are settling in. They are fleeing from the current Cote d’Ivoire conflict.

SOUNDBITE (French) Nasma Camara, Ivorian, refugee:
“During the war, the rebels entered the house and assassinated people. We were scared, we were beaten there, they killed my husband.”

Camara and her daughter, Nasma are not recent refugees, but Nasma’s children have inherited her refugee status and the problems that come with it.

According to the UN, about 1.5 million have been displaced, by the current conflict in Cote D’Ivoire.