Catholic Relief Service (CRS) has through its grant support to the Navrongo -Bolgatanga Catholic Diocesan Development Office (NABOCADO) presented food and non-food items worth 1.3 million Cedis to refugees in the Upper East Region.
The gesture forms part of the Burninabe Refugee Response Support program initiated by NABOCADO.
The distributed items include Rice, Maize, Beans, Oil, Salt, Mats, Buckets, Blankets, Mosquito nets, Kettle, Jerricans, Soap, and a cash amount of 320.00 cedis to each beneficiary household.
The items were distributed to 338 Refugee Households and 42 Host families across 7 communities in the Bawku Municipal, Binduri and Bawku West Districts bringing the total number of beneficiary households to 380.
It would be recalled that nearly 1,000 Burkinabe nationals fled to Ghana in July 2022.
The Burkinabes fled from Benliyali, a community in the French-speaking nation after an attack by unknown gunmen at night which left dozens dead.
Speaking Tuesday, December 20, 2022, during the presentation of the items, the Country Representative of CRS, Daniel Mumuni noted that it was heartbreaking to see children, women and men abandon school and various economic ventures to live in an environment that is not ideal and dignifying as one will expect.
He further commended the host communities and households for not abandoning their brothers and sisters from Burkina Faso.
“At a personal level, I am deeply touched by just what I am seeing now. Why because I am a father and a husband to someone and to see families in a situation like this, touches my heart very deeply. These children should be in school. Our fathers and mothers here should be economically engaged and our mothers should be living in dignifying environment but here we’re.
I guess this is a reminder to all of us, of the harmful effects of war and of the security crisis evading and affecting our region and to realize that it is very close to us because even in Ghana we are not experiencing anything but we are feeling the effect of what has happened elsewhere.
So, I will urge Ghanaians to continue to ward off some of these extremists’ activities and violent tendencies and to see it as a collective effort,” he admonished
Bishop of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Catholic Diocese, Alfred Agyenta said his outfit will look beyond the provision of the relief items and also try to address the spiritual needs of the refugees by providing them with pastoral care.
“I am really moved because it is no longer hearsay or anything that you hear in the news and all that. You look at the children, you look at the mothers, and also the men, you can see that we people who are going through difficulties, and if there is anything we can do as human beings is to stand with them in times of difficulties.
We’re also concerned as a church with their spiritual needs and so I will be talking with my priest based here to be able to see how we can reach out to let them know that God is a factor that they should not forget and so we’re looking at the possibility of providing them with pastoral care, “he disclosed.
