Dafur Asylum Seekers Registered

The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) has registered about 168 Sudanese asylum seekers, who fled the war in the Dafur region of Sudan to enable it to provide them with food and shelter.

The move is also aimed at knowing their exact number for transport arrangements to be made to evacuate them to the Workers Brigade Camp, near Adidome in the Volta Region later today or early tomorrow morning.

When the paper's team arrived at their current base at the Ghana Institute of Languages, near “Kaukudi” junction in Accra yesterday, the Sudanese had formed long queues awaiting their turn to be registered while the heavily armed policemen looked on.

According to Mr Ninii Akiwumi, the chairman of the Ghana Refugee Board, the asylum seekers would be temporarily taken care of at the camp for proper screening to be done.

He said the board had been cautious in moving in to assist them because it wanted to be sure of their true status through the information they had provided for the UNHCR.

Mr Akiwumi said depending on what information was gathered, the right international procedures would be followed.

The chief disaster control officer of NADMO, Mr Asumaning Odei-Mensah, said the organization did not know about their presence until they were moved to their office by the police last Tuesday.

He said since the organization was a humanitarian one, it had taken it upon itself to treat issue as such. Mr Odei-Mensah said while they were being properly screened to ascertain the reason for which they were in the country, NADMO would take care of them.