Africa-Press – Ghana. The demolition of Ghana’s Buduburam refugee settlement exposed the fragile aftermath of displacement policies. Phillip Garjay Innis explains why ending refugee status is not the same as ending displacement.
On 27 February 2024, bulldozers rolled into Buduburam, Ghana’s long-standing settlement for Liberian refugees. The machines tore down homes, churches, and schools. By the end of the year, nearly the entire camp had been razed, displacing many who had lived there for decades. Most of the residents had known Buduburam as their only home for over thirty years. Though no longer officially refugees, they were not Ghanaian citizens either. Those considered locally integrated held only temporary residence permits and, in many cases, restricted work permits, which limit their access to formal jobs, secure housing, and public services. What followed was not the promise of a lasting solution, but a deeper exposure to “riskscapes”: overlapping and persistent insecurities that endured long after formal protection had ended.
Buduburam was established by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) in 1990 to shelter Liberian refugees fleeing the First Liberian Civil War, which began in late 1989. It evolved into a self-sustaining informal settlement, becoming home to traders, tailors, teachers, pastors, bakers, and salon owners. A vibrant informal economy enabled survival and created a locally rooted social order for a community born in exile.In 2012, the UN invoked the cessation clause, declaring Liberia safe for return. About 4,700 Liberians in Ghana were voluntarily repatriated, and roughly 4,000 opted for local integration, choosing to remain in Ghana as legally recognised residents rather than returning home. Many stayed because of family ties in Ghana, livelihood prospects, or concerns about personal safety in Liberia, particularly among former combatants and members of certain ethnic groups who feared retaliation or renewed intercommunal violence despite the country’s broader stability.
Those who opted to integrate locally faced several challenges. Integration packages, typically temporary residence permits, vocational grants, and a one-off payment of about $400, offered only limited support. A UNHCR research paper argued that in the absence of land rights, secure housing, education, and sustainable livelihoods, these so-called solutions were largely hollow. Other studies similarly revealed that Liberians in Buduburam faced persistent barriers to formal employment, with limited financial independence and ongoing social exclusion.
Invisible lives in legal grey zones
By early 2024, Buduburam was home to an estimated 15,000 residents. These included not only former refugees but also Ghanaians, migrants from other countries, and newer Liberian arrivals. Many were drawn by the low cost of living and the cohesion of Buduburam’s self-sustaining community.
However, given that the camp had been decommissioned over a decade earlier, residents were no longer protected under refugee frameworks. Frustrations had deepened among the Gomoa-Fetteh traditional leadership, who had long expected the land to be returned following the camp’s closure
By the time of the 2024 demolition, residents had been effectively reclassified as squatters. In 2021, the Ghanaian government had intervened to halt an announced demolition by the Gomoa-Fetteh Traditional Council. By 2024, however, mounting pressure from local chiefs in the area made the government less inclined to intervene. The chiefs had long voiced frustration over the delay in reclaiming land that had been promised back to its owners after the camp’s decommissioning more than a decade earlier, without any compensation, and raised security concerns, including claims that the settlement had become a haven for criminal activity. While these concerns were cited to justify the clearance, community members and advocates argued that such characterisations risked stigmatising residents and that the demolitions proceeded without adequate resettlement plans or livelihood support.
Cessation, repatriation, and return
In May and June 2024, in the months following the demolition, the Liberian government organised two major repatriation exercises. Around 4,300 individuals returned, beginning with the first group of 770 on 21 May 2024.
The repatriation efforts were financed almost entirely through domestic resources. In a country already grappling with widespread development challenges, this required the reallocation of funds from critical infrastructure projects. Consequently, reintegration support was minimal, despite the best efforts of the Liberian authorities.
Despite these efforts, hundreds of former Buduburam residents remain scattered across Ghana, some in nearby towns or in makeshift shelters near the demolished camp. Many hold expired or nearly expired documents and lack legal clarity or access to support systems. Since the demolition, most have not returned to Liberia largely because they would need assistance to do so, and many remain hopeful that the Liberian government will conduct additional repatriation exercises. Observers note that publicly available timelines or detailed plans for such returns, as well as long-term support for those who remain in Ghana, have not yet been outlined.
The post-refugee riskscapes
When the UN invoked the cessation clause, it was presented as a step toward a “durable solution.” But for many in Buduburam, it didn’t end displacement: it reshaped it. After the demolition, former residents found that the people and routines that had sustained life in the camp could no longer shield them from new forms of insecurity. Without valid residence or work permits, some risk fines or detention when stopped at police checkpoints. Parents have struggled to keep children in school without the informal networks that once helped with fees. Others have lost the small businesses they ran from their homes, forcing them into casual, irregular work.
These risks do not occur in neat sequence. They overlap. Legal insecurity makes it harder to rent housing; unstable housing makes it harder to find work; lack of work deepens dependence on overstretched relatives or friends. While some manage to adapt through community solidarity or informal economies, the absence of clear legal status and institutional support leaves many exposed to a mix of vulnerabilities that persist long after official refugee status ends.
The challenge now is not only to reduce these risks but also to think differently about how displacement is managed. For many former refugees, the harder struggle goes beyond returning home or moving elsewhere. It is about finding ways to belong, to be heard, and to stay safe without the protection that formal refugee status once gave them.
Toward just and durable solutions
Buduburam’s demolition shows that ending refugee status does not end displacement. While cessation clauses aim for permanent solutions, they often overlook the lived realities on the ground. In Buduburam, legal closure of the camp did not bring integration or support but abandonment, and left people to navigate continued displacement without protection.
What is urgently needed is a shift from technical fixes to justice-driven approaches that address the long-term effects of displacement. Durable solutions cannot be limited to return flights or removing people from refugee registers. They require ongoing support for livelihoods, mental health, legal identity, and community rebuilding.
Comparative experiences offer both caution and direction. Kenya’s Dadaab attempted closure in 2016 highlighted the dangers of rushed withdrawals. In Côte d’Ivoire, Liberians, despite prior integration, were again displaced amid renewed violence, illustrating how unresolved vulnerabilities can re-emerge. These cases emphasise a key lesson: the risks that underpin displacement do not disappear with legal declassification; they shift, mutate, and persist.
These dynamics reveal systemic failures that go far beyond Buduburam. They show how unclear the responsibility for people in legal limbo is, how displacement can drop off the humanitarian agenda long before its effects fade, and how regional frameworks still struggle to see the urban marginalisation, contested land rights, and a crisis of belonging associated with displacement. Unless these realities are addressed, the cycle of insecurity will continue long after refugee status ends.
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