Liberia: Welcome to Lib - On World Refugee Day, Liberia Grants 300 Sierra Leoneans Citizenship Sierra Leone accepts dual citizenship - Where will their loyalty be Liberia or Sierra Leone? Remember Liberia does not accept dual citizenship. After two decades of living in Liberia, 300 former Sierra Leonean refugees have been conferred Liberian citizenship as countries around the world marked World Refugee Day on 20 June. The former refugees took the Oath of Allegiance at Criminal Court B at the Temple of Justice which houses the Supreme Court of Liberia. The total number is 1,488 for which President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf gave a waiver. But we have done 300. We will continue until all the former Sierra Leonean refugees that opted for naturalization go through the process to take the oath, remarked the Executive Director of the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC), Cllr. Wheatonia Y. Dixon Barnes. It was a very tedious process that required a lot of hard work. We thank the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for supporting the process. We are happy that our brothers and sisters that came over to Liberia since the early 1990s are now citizens. The conferment of citizenship at the Monrovia City Hall was greeted with smiles by the former refugees most of whom have locally integrated into various communities, amidst intermarriages, with support from the UNHCR and LRRRC. The Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Rule of Law, Mr. Tamrat Samuel, urged the new citizens to contribute to the future development of Liberia. He thanked the Government and people of Liberia for embracing the local integration phenomenon as part of efforts to promote regional peace and stability, and as part of efforts to solve the global refugee problem. Noting that he was once a refugee for many years, the Acting UNHCR Representative, Mr. Robert Tibagwa, lauded the Government of Liberia for currently hosting more than 60,000 refugees including about 59,000 Ivorians. The Acting Representative said UNHCR concluded the voluntary repatriation of more than 155,000 Liberian refugees from neighbouring countries in December 2012. He reiterated that hundreds of Liberians remaining in countries of asylum have also opted to naturalize like the former Sierra Leonean refugees and are being assisted to do so. The World Refugee Day programme was attended by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Sylvester Grigsby who represented the Liberian president; the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization Commissioner and Deputy Attorney General, Cllr. Abla G. Williams; Judge Jeeplah Tiklo Konton and Dr. Laurence Konmla Bropleh of Lonestar Communications Corporation. The Ambassador of Sierra Leone, Rev. Dr. Marie Jilo Barnett, also made remarks. Various UN agencies and non-government organizations representatives witnessed the event. World Refugee Day was also celebrated in all the four Ivorian refugee camps in Liberia.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 20:35:36 +0000
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