Red Cross Blogs

Hawa’s story: caring for Ivorian children in a refugee camp

By Sarah Oughton
May 18, 2011 at 10:00 am

When Hawa Gbah, 32, fled conflict in the Ivory Coast she escaped with her one-year-old son but she doesn’t know what happened to her husband and three older children.

After a gruelling journey through the bush, Hawa arrived in Liberia and is now living in a camp outside Zorgowee town, Nimba county. Bouncing her young son on her knee, she told me: “When the fighting began I was at home with my youngest son, but my three older children were out with my husband.

“I was looking for them as I made my way to Liberia. Although I didn’t find them, I found four other children on the journey who I know from my village. One of them, Vanessa, is friends with my children and I brought them all with me and am now looking after them in this camp.”

Struggle for food

“I feel bad because my husband is not here and I miss him and my other children,” Hawa said. “Now I’m the breadwinner and I have five children to look after but there’s no work here for me and life is very difficult.

“I used to run a restaurant back home, but now I can’t work and I’m sitting doing nothing and I’ve no income.

“I am Liberian but I married an Ivorian and I live in the Ivory Coast. But I don’t feel that it’s safe for me to just go back to the Ivory Coast. I want to be able to start some small business here until the situation improves and I can go back.”

Red Cross support

“My brother-in-law is also here in the camp and the Red Cross has provided us with free phone calls,” Hawa said. “We have both tried calling my husband but cannot get through to him. I think he is still in the Ivory Coast but I don’t know where.”

As well as providing refugees with free phone calls, Red Cross volunteers visit the camp regularly going from tent to tent and talking to people.

For tens of thousands of displaced people in the west of the Ivory Coast and refugees in neighbouring Liberia, there is still concern about the danger of returning home. The Red Cross is distributing food and other supplies, providing drinking water and supporting medical facilities.

Read 12-year-old Vanessa’s story about fleeing fighting in the Ivory Coast and losing contact with her family

Donate to our Ivory Coast Crisis Appeal

Look at photos from Liberia

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Tags: disaster, displaced people, emergency, Ivory Coast Crisis Appeal, Liberia, Red Cross volunteers, refugees

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