IOM's programme to help Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) return
and resettle in their areas of residence in Western Cote d'Ivoire
requires additional funding as more and more displaced West African
migrant workers turn to IOM to receive comprehensive return and
reintegration assistance.

"IOM is regularly solicited by displaced migrant workers who
wish to return to Western Cote d'Ivoire," says Jacques Seurt, IOM's
Chief of Mission in Cote d'Ivoire. "But current ECHO funding, which
will run out in June, only allows us to provide return and
reintegration assistance to IDPs living in the IOM-run Centre for
Assistance to Temporary Displaced Persons (CATD) in Guiglo."

Other on-going IOM activities to provide assistance to returning
migrant workers and host communities are funded by the United
Nations’ Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and by
Norway.

"IOM urgently needs an additional USD 2 million to expand its
peace consolidation, return and community rehabilitation programmes
for 2007/2008," adds IOM's Seurt. "Should this funding not
materialize, we will miss an important window of opportunity to
consolidate current efforts to promote national
reconciliation."

 

The IOM centre in Guiglo currently shelters some 5,000 displaced
West African migrant workers, mostly nationals from Burkina Faso
and Mali but also people of Burkinabé and Malian descent
who, in some cases, have worked the land in Western Cote d'Ivoire
for generations.

Many more that fled ethnic strife in 2002 and 2003 live in
precarious conditions outside the CATD in spontaneous settlements
in the prefectures of Guiglo, Toulepleu and Blolequin in south west
Côte d'Ivoire.  

IOM's return and reintegration programme, which so far has
helped several hundreds of IDPs, follows extensive efforts to
promote reconciliation at a local level between communities of
displaced West African migrant workers and host communities over
complex land issues.

As part of on-going reconciliation efforts, IOM teams regularly
travel to remote villages to meet traditional elders to encourage
them to sit down with representatives of the displaced.

The meetings, carried out in coordination with local
authorities, humanitarian agencies and partner NGOs, bring together
members of displaced communities and village elders to discuss
issues surrounding the return to the land for displaced migrant
workers.

The gatherings are usually followed by ceremonies of
reconciliation in villages, where local communities have expressed
concerns regarding the return of the displaced.

Upon their return, displaced migrant workers and vulnerable
families living in the host community received food and non food
items such as tarpaulins, blankets and kitchen kits, which had been
pre-positioned ahead of time by IOM. Food assistance, seeds and
tools are distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

For more information, please contact:

Jacques Seurt

IOM Abidjan

Tel +225 22 52 82 00

E-mail: "mailto:Jseurt@iom.int">Jseurt@iom.int