Togo refugees flood Kadjebi, Hohoe districts
Refugee numbers from Togo still increasing
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A total of 1,502 refugees, including 75 Ghanaians, had been identified at various communities in the Kadjebi and Hohoe districts at the close of Friday April 29, this year.The Kadjebi District recorded 908 with Obuasi registering 104, Tsotorme, 315, including 75 Ghanaians, Ahamansu 50 and Adakope/Awudome identifying 142 people.

The Hohoe District registered 694 refugees with the break down as follows: Likpe-Todome 418, Likpe-Bala, 134, Likpe-Mate 14 and Wli 128.Most of the refugees in the two districts are women and children.Briefing Captain (Rtd) Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey, Deputy Minister of the Interior, Mr Kudzo Asoglah, a Spokesman of the group said they had to flee Togo because of intimidation by gun wielding Togolese soldiers who besieged Kisibo and Kpele in Togo, shooting indiscriminately into the air while they seized ballot boxes during last Sunday's election.He said these incessant brutalities and harassment endangered their lives and sent them seeking refuge across the border.

Mr Soglah said some of the refugees came with various degrees of injury.Mr Kofi Adjei-Ntim, Kadjebi District Chief Executive (DCE), remarked that the situation at Tsotome was challenging because the community was not accessible by road but only on foot through the mountains covering four kilometres.He said some refugees who had allied families were putting up comfortably with them while the majority were sleeping in open classrooms with its attendant problems.

Mr Adjei-Ntim said there was pressure on food and water in the area, which needed urgent attention.Captain Effah-Dartey assured the refugees that government and its agencies responsible for refugees were seriously working around the clock to bring them assistance.He, therefore, appealed to them to comport themselves and refrain from acts, which were likely to endanger their security and that of host country, Ghana.

The Deputy Minister asked the media to exercise decorum in their reportage on issues bordering on national security to avoid creating panic.Mr Joseph Nayan, Deputy Volta Regional Minister, said reports of gunshots across the border from Togo hitting three people at Aflao for allegedly hooting at Togolese soldiers were intriguing.

He said in as much as hooting at the soldiers was not right, shooting into hapless civilians was also a mark of un-professionalism, which must be punished.

Mr Nayan urged the public to refrain from such acts as the people in Togo were in difficult times and distress.Dr Kofi K. Manfo, Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Operations, urged security personnel along the country's frontier to collaborate and search for arms and ammunition among the refugees.

Mr K. Bawumiah, an official of the UNHCR, said Adidome in the North-Tongu District, Metrikasa in Ketu-District and Jasikan had been earmarked as camps for refugees.Other members of the entourage were Mr Prosper Asima, Deputy Director on Immigration, Operations, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Yanyi-Akorfur, Commander of the 66 Artillery Regiment in Ho, Mr Patrick Dogbe, Deputy Volta Regional Commander of Customs and officials of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).

afrol News, 13 May
The number of post-election Togolese refugees in neighbouring countries has now passed 26,000, according to the UN's refugee agency UNHCR. The flow out of Togo, which recently slipped into political violence after the rigged presidential elections, was however dropping, the UN agency noted. Human rights group in Togo claim that until now, 800 persons had been killed since the violence erupted.

Eklou Clumson, Vice-President of Togo's Human Rights League (LTDH), today told the press in Lomé, the Togolese capital, that the death toll in Togo's election violence had reached at least 811. Further, more than 4500 had been injured before, during and after the rigged election last month. LTDH presented an 11-page report, documenting its calculations.

Reports from Lomé indicate that the situation in the city now is much calmer. This was also noted on the slowing refugee stream out of the country into neighbouring Benin and Ghana, which by now has reached a total of 26,000 persons.

According to the UNHCR spokesman, the flow of Togolese fleeing feared disputes after last month's presidential election "has dropped drastically." However, a mobile rescue team with staff from UNHCR And the government of Ghana, had found more than 1,000 refugees hidden in remote pockets near the Ghanaian border and in poor condition. These people could boost the number of people registered by the UN agency in Ghana to 12,800 from 10,866, the spokesman said today.

In the south-eastern Ghanaian area of Hevi, near the border point of Aflao, Chief Togbe Tu Agbalekpor III welcomed refugees into his palace and appealed to his people to do the same. They offered rooms and farmland to the refugees, UNHCR reported from Ghana.

Some of the refugees needed urgent food and non-food aid, as did the families hosting friends and relatives, the UN agency said. A UN team was now travelling along a large stretch of the Ghana-Togo border from Jasikan and Kadjebi to Aflao to assess food needs.

Refugee returns from Ghana to Togo fell to 15 yesterday from 850 on Sunday and Monday, UNHCR said. New entrants at Aflao numbered just three yesterday.

In Benin, meanwhile, UNHCR had found 1,000 Togolese refugees living with families and friends, or sleeping in public buildings in the Tchetti area. They declined to move into camps and the local authorities had given them anti-malarial bed nets.

More than 5,000 refugees had already moved to Come and Lokossa camps, where the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) had put in more sanitation facilities. More land was being cleared at Lokossa camp for housing for refugees sleeping on church grounds at Hilakondji, the UNHCR spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the UN was now to launch a US$ 5 million emergency appeal for the Togolese refugees in Benin for six months. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said the appeal was being made on the basis of a new assessment and would cover protection, shelter, food, water, education, health and community services. Some 70 percent of the refugees had been taken in by local families and the appeal included direct assistance to the refugees in the camps and also to those local families.