A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

This leads [him] and others to use ‘the gulf’, an especially unsanitary field
where residents go to ‘defecate for free.’ In addition to the health concerns
posed by an open field of trash and feces, this is also where many robberies
and beatings occur. [He] himself was attacked in July 2007 by two Ghanaian
men in the middle of the day. Luckily for [him], two camp residents were
nearby and prevented the attack from escalating.
[He] was also attacked in February 2007, when two camp residents and a
Ghanaian man attacked him behind the internet café around 9 p.m. One
of the internet café workers happened to come outside at that time, and the
attackers – one of whom [he] often sees around camp – fled. The worker
helped [him] inside, and he escorted [him] back to his home.
[He] explained that security conditions are very bad generally in the camp.
He knows of three children that have gone missing in the past few years,
only to turn up dead at various points within the camp. In 2002, a boy was
found at ‘the gulf,’ and in 2003 they found a child at the dam. In 2004, a
boy’s body turned up at St. Gregory College. Worst of all is the indignity of
the deaths, as there is no way to properly bury them and no one bothers to
investigate. He described a man named Miller, who was chopped to pieces
in 2003. When the UNHCR showed up, they buried the body in a matter of
hours and left without further investigation. 222
This young man’s concerns were echoed again and again in statement taking in Buduburam. In fact,
many residents are worse off because they have had no education and virtually no work. There is
no freely available water in the settlement. All water for drinking, cooking, and bathing must be
trucked in and then purchased on an as-needed basis. 223 Food is available for sale in the markets
in the camp and in various cook shops, but many cannot afford it. 224 The World Food Programme
provides food rations for individuals identified as vulnerable, 225 but numerous statement givers stated
that they could not get on the “list” for food, or that some refugees were on the list and others were
not, with apparently little information available about the rationale for exclusion. 226 Many complained
that distribution of rice had been stopped and replaced with corn, 227 which is not a Liberian staple
and was perceived by some Liberians to be comparable to animal feed. Like so many other programs
in Buduburam, funding for the food distribution program had been dramatically cut over the years.
In fact, the coordinator, a Liberian refugee, was volunteering his services and had not been paid for
months. 228
Statement givers also repeatedly mentioned problems accessing adequate healthcare in the camp.
This sentiment was echoed in interviews with staff from the St. Gregory Catholic Clinic, the only
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