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Côte d'Ivoire/Liberia: Ivorian children rejoin their families

17-01-2012 Photo gallery

Liberia still hosts some 100,000 Ivorian refugees who fled the post-electoral violence after December 2010. As the situation in Côte d'Ivoire stabilizes, people are gradually returning. ICRC communication delegate Noora Kero travelled from Liberia to Côte d'Ivoire with seven refugee children who were on their way to rejoin their families. The children had become separated from their parents when they fled to Liberia. The ICRC and the Liberian Red Cross have registered close to 600 children and young people and traced their parents in Côte d'Ivoire. Now, they are bringing them home. Our photo diary traces Céléstine and Mohammed’s emotional journey from a Liberian refugee camp to their village in Côte d'Ivoire.

  • Céléstine, 17 and Mohammed, 7 lost track of their parents when their village in Côte d'Ivoire was attacked. They found their way to a refugee camp in Liberia where they have spent over six months. The Red Cross Tracing Network has found their families and both the children and the parents have agreed that the ICRC can bring the children home.
    • Bahn refugee camp, south-eastern Liberia. 14 December 2011. Céléstine, 17 and Mohammed, 7 lost track of their parents when their village in Côte d'Ivoire was attacked.
      © ICRC / N. Kero

    They found their way to a refugee camp in Liberia where they have spent over six months. The Red Cross Tracing Network has found their families and both the children and the parents have agreed that the ICRC can bring the children home.

  • Henriette agreed to take care of Céléstine and Mohammed in the refugee camp after fleeing Côte d'Ivoire with her own five children.
    • Bahn refugee camp, south-eastern Liberia. 14 December 2011. Henriette agreed to take care of Céléstine and Mohammed in the refugee camp after fleeing Côte d'Ivoire with her own five children.
      © ICRC / N. Kero

    After more than six months in the camp, she still has no news about her husband. Céléstine tells me how grateful they are to be taken care of by her. She feels Henriette is like her mother; "Henriette even looks like my mother," she says.

  • Henriette has become very attached to Céléstine and Mohammed and will be sad to see them leave tomorrow.
    • Bahn refugee camp, south-eastern Liberia. 14 December 2011. Henriette has become very attached to Céléstine and Mohammed and will be sad to see them leave tomorrow.
      © ICRC / T. Luege

    Céléstine's mother is dead and Mohammed's mother left with a new husband when the boy was three years old. "As a woman, you take care of any children as if they were your own," she says.

  • Already a Red Cross volunteer back home in Côte d'Ivoire, Alphonse is one of the Red Cross tracing volunteers in Bahn camp.
    • Bahn refugee camp, south-eastern Liberia. 14 December 2011. Alphonse, also a refugee, is the neighbour of Céléstine, Mohammed and Henriette in the camp.
      © ICRC / N. Kero

    Already a Red Cross volunteer back home in Côte d'Ivoire, he's one of the Red Cross tracing volunteers in Bahn camp who facilitate refugees' phone calls to their families, collect Red Cross messages and help the ICRC register the children. Alphonse has the great advantage that he speaks the local languages, and can act as an interpreter between ICRC staff and refugees who speak neither French nor English.

  • Bahn refugee camp, south-eastern Liberia. 15 December 2011. Henriette's family, friends and neighbours help carry the children’s luggage to the Land Cruiser.
    • Bahn refugee camp, south-eastern Liberia. 15 December 2011. Henriette's family, friends and neighbours help carry the children’s luggage to the Land Cruiser.
      © ICRC / N. Kero / v-p-lr-e-00535

    Last night, Céléstine had her hair braided, and Henriette and all the children ate a meal of rice together. The ICRC has provided them with travel documents and some basic items for the journey from Liberia to Côte d'Ivoire.

  • Henriette and Céléstine shed tears as Henriette whispers something into Céléstine’s ear and bids her an emotional good-bye.

    Mohammed is standing next to the person who has been looking after him at the camp, looking confused. As Henriette orginally comes from another village in Côte d'Ivoire, she may never see "her" children again.

  • Céléstine and Mohammed sit motionless as the ICRC Land Cruiser takes them back to their village.

    Few words are exchanged and it is hard to imagine what they are thinking. When they last saw their house it had been looted. A few kilometres before the village, they start to recognize their surroundings. Six hours after the children left Bahn, excitement mounts.

  • Dohouba, Côte d’Ivoire. 15 December 2011. The whole village has turned out to greet the children, singing, dancing and clapping.

    Céléstine's father gives his daughter and grandson a big hug, followed by an aunt, other relatives and people from the village.

  • The next morning, we return to the village and visit the children to ensure that all is well.

    Mohammed had looked confused the day before, but now he is relaxed and smiling, happy to be back with his family in the house he and his father share with Céléstine and her father. We ask the whole family to pose for one last photo and wish them well. ICRC staff working in Côte d’Ivoire will visit them in a month's time to check that the children are settling back into their families.


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