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Returning Ivorians fret over lack of work, security

Thu, 12 May 2011 11:36 GMT

Source: alertnet // George Fominyen

A child carries his foster sister on his back at a temporary camp set up at a Catholic church in Duekoue for people fleeing violence in the west of Ivory Coast, May 8, 2011. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon

By George Fominyen

DAKAR (AlertNet) – Ibrahim Kone returned to his home in the western Ivory Coast town of Duekoue this week, five months after fleeing conflict sparked by a disputed presidential poll, only to find he's jobless and can't provide for his family.

"My family and I have nothing," 40-year-old Kone told AlertNet. "I used to work in a poultry farm with a really kind owner but he had problems during the violence and closed down the farm, meaning I have no job. I am really worried now."

Kone hopes that aid groups and the Ivorian government will come to the assistance of displaced people who have lost their livelihoods in their poor, rural communities of origin.

Duekoue, 500km northwest of Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan, was among the towns hit hardest by inter-communal violence during the power struggle between President Alassane Ouattara and his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo, who had refused to cede power despite U.N.-certified results showing he lost November's election.

The ensuing fighting killed 3,000 people and uprooted over a million. Gbagbo was arrested on April 11 by pro-Ouattara troops backed by U.N. and French forces, and Ouattara was sworn in as president last week.

Aid groups say atrocities - including the massacres of hundreds of people and burning of homes - were committed in Duekoue and other western locations during the clashes between troops and militia backing the presidential rivals.

Tens of thousands of people were uprooted in the west, particularly in Duekoue, where about 27,000 people are still sheltering in an overcrowded Catholic mission compound.

'LIFE IS NOT THE SAME'

"It was really horrible," Kone said of the violence that drove him to escape with his heavily pregnant wife and their two children, aged four and six.

"We ran in the bush for about 25km, then we reached the main road and trekked to the town of Bangolo where we took a bus to Man (450km from Abidjan)," he said on the phone from Duekoue.

Unlike Kone, though, many displaced people do not feel secure enough to go back to their communities. Some no longer have homes, as they were destroyed in the violence, while many fear reprisal attacks by militia still operating across the country.

Last week, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) cancelled a planned operation to transport around 1,000 people who wanted to return to their communities in the west.

"The security situation was still not ideal for the return," an IOM spokesman told AlertNet

But Kone chose to leave the camp in Man where his family had been sheltering with hundreds of other internally displaced people. While there, his wife had given birth to their third child – a baby girl called Aminata.

"We didn't have as much help as before and food was running short, so we decided to return," he said. When they got home, everything was as they had left it.
 
"Nothing was broken, but life as we knew it is not the same," said the 40-year-old. "I just want the new president and his regime to think of the poor. He should not forget those of us who are poor."

The United Nations said some refugees who had fled to Liberia's Nimba County are returning to Ivory Coast, although it could not confirm numbers.

The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates that 166,000 Ivorians have crossed into neighbouring Liberia since the end of November. Most have been living with host communities in villages along the border, stretching their limited resources.