Ouagadougou: The headquarters of the Ton Association in Niangoloko, on the Burkina-Côte-D’Ivoire border, welcomed on Tuesday July 16, 2024 Burkinabè who had been returned from the Ivory Coast.
On this reception site, women and children are housed in the buildings there and others in tents erected by the Red Cross.
Social Action or health teams come and go to ensure that their stay on this site goes well. There are 173 of these Burkinabè people.
The oldest is 75 years old and the youngest is a 4 month old baby. According to one of the returnees, Mamady Diallo, they lived in Ouangolodougou, in Ivory Coast with their herds.
They were identified and put in a vehicle for Burkina Faso without explanation. Many left part of their family and their animals there.
These repatriated Burkinabè are all of the Peulh ethnic group and all come from a village in the commune of Ouarkoye, in the Boucle de Mouhoun.
The Minister of Solidarity, Humanitarian Action, National Reconciliation, Gender, and Family, Nandy Somé, and
her colleague delegate in charge of Security, Mahamadou Sana, visited them on Wednesday July 17, 2024 .
The two members of the government visited their host site and spoke with them. The Minister in charge of Humanitarian Action said she was satisfied with the system put in place to welcome these returnees.
‘On the instructions of the President of Faso, we carried out this mission to inquire about the reception conditions of our compatriots who were pushed back from Ivory Coast. We came to find that an emergency system had been put in place to accommodate them and give them food, and to care for people in need,’ underlined Nandy Somé.
This plan, continued Nandy Somé, is an active emergency response that has been implemented since their arrival. She revealed that her department had made arrangements to handle these kinds of situations.
‘We had been taking steps for a while because we had warnings of this massive pushback.
So this doesn’t surprise us. The arrangements that have been made demonstrate that w
e are in a responsible country capable of receiving all Burkinabè wherever they are.’
This visit was an opportunity for Nandy Somé to invite the Burkinabè to build Burkina Faso by staying in the country.
‘This is an opportunity to tell our brothers who have gone to settle in foreign countries that there is work in Burkina Faso. Let them stay with us so that we can build the country. The instruction that was given by the Head of State is to assess the individual situation of all these people who arrived to provide the appropriate response,’ indicated Minister Somé.
For the Minister Delegate in charge of security, the refoulement violates the provisions of international conventions on the status of refugees.
‘The refoulement was not previously notified. We do not know the real intentions of the Ivorian authorities. In any case, we have taken security measures to not only inveigh against the trigger for this repression. Is it linked to the ECOWAS summit? Or did these people sin by being Fulani? Whatever happ
ens, we have taken steps to protect them,’ said Mahamadou Sana, who suggested that the government will also seek to understand what happened because it could be that it has malicious intentions behind this repression.
Like his colleague from Social Action, the Minister Delegate invited the Burkinabè to unite efforts to save Burkina Faso.
‘This is an opportunity for us to appeal to the people of Burkina Faso that we do not have two nations. We must unite efforts to preserve this nation, otherwise the direct consequence is what we have come to see,’ he invited.
The government mission did not go to Niangoloko empty-handed. She brought with her food and equipment to strengthen the human and material resources of the existing emergency response system.
‘It is not excluded that there will be other influxes,’ said Ms. Somé. One of the deportees, Idrissa Barry, thanked the government for this attention paid to them and expressed his gratitude to the population for the welcome they received upon their arrival in N
iangoloko.
Source: Burkina Information Agency