A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

eing turned away at the border). According to Amnesty International, security forces at the Ivorian
and Guinean borders harassed refugees or demanded fines to allow them to pass. 120 “At the border,
government soldiers acted as immigration officers…They requested money from people who were
leaving the country. This was expensive for the large families. [I didn’t] believe they should make [me]
pay to leave my own country.” 121 Refugees were arbitrarily arrested and detained, some because they
were accused of being members of a fighting faction 122 and others because they had no documents. 123
A statement giver now living in Minnesota told the TRC he had been abused by Ivorian rebel forces
in 1998 when trying to cross the border:
Ivorian soldiers arrested [us] four Liberians from the back of a truck at a
checkpoint. They demanded money and water. The soldiers put rocks and
sand on my back and beat me with a stick. They also twisted the stick into
my skin. They had overthrown the Ivorian government and accused me of
bypassing the gate. 124
Human rights groups documented
refugees being denied
entry at the border of neigh-
boring countries, a measure
which amounts to refoulement.
125 Refoulement is specifically
prohibited under international
refugee law. Guinean
security forces reportedly
closed the border to refugees. 126
Sierra Leone also closed its
border to Liberian refugees
at various times, fearing that
armed fighters were crossing
the border. 127 Moreover, fighting
spilled across borders and
often was very intense at the border itself. A statement giver who fled to Côte d’Ivoire with her
children after her husband was killed told the TRC that “there was killing at the border, and she lost
track of [her children].” 128 She described looking for her children along the border for three days but
never finding them.
Transport by ship out of the port in Monrovia was another major mode of border crossing. Both
commercial and military vessels transported refugees out of the port. Liberians desperate to escape
the atrocities overran ships. Although not designed to carry thousands of wounded and/or starving
passengers, these ships were nevertheless a lifeline for many.
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Chapter Thirteen