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| Saidou, a refugee from Mauritania, proudly shows his biometric ID card. The cards will also help the younger members of his family. [PHOTO: © UNHCR/M.Fall-Diaw] |
Richard Toll, Senegal: Eighty-year-old Mauritanian refugee Fatou has seen a lot in
her long life, but she still got excited when she went to pick up her new
biometric identity card from the UN refugee agency.
"Finally I have it! I know I'm old and I won't use this
card much but I'm happy to have it," she cried with delight after picking
up the card at a school in Richard Toll, a town on Senegal's border with
Mauritania. "At least I have an identity now. I exist," added Fatou,
who was issued ID valid for only three months after fleeing to Senegal in 1989
with a daughter living with disability.
UNHCR, in partnership with the Senegalese government,
recently launched a campaign to provide digitized and biometric ID cards to
some 19,000 refugees by the end of this year. About 14,000, including Fatou,
are from Mauritania and have said they do not wish to return home. More than
24,000 Mauritanians were repatriated from Senegal under a programme launched in
2008 and completed in March this year.
The cards include a picture of the holder as well as
fingerprints and biographical data. They are aimed at easing local integration
and they guarantee the holder the same rights as Senegalese citizens, including
the right to residence in the country and to travel to member states of the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). One of the things it does
not grant is the right to vote. They are being distributed to all refugees aged
five years or above.
Despite her age, Fatou was determined to collect her card
and, with the help of a walking stick, she made her way slowly from her nearby
village to a school in Richard Toll that was being used by UNHCR to process and
hand out the relatively sophisticated cards, which store data about the holder.
The old lady left her homeland after a long-standing border
dispute between Mauritania and Senegal escalated into ethnic violence in April
1989. Some 60,000 Mauritanians fled to Senegal and Mali. UNHCR provided
assistance to the Mauritanian refugees in northern Senegal until 1995 and
facilitated the reintegration of 35,000 refugees who decided on their own
accord to return to Mauritania between 1996 and 1998.
Amy, aged 30, came to Mauritania as a child. She was also
delighted about the new ID card, which she said would make life easier for her
family. "My [three] children will be able to attend good schools with
these cards," she said, adding: "We couldn't do anything without
them. Banks wouldn't trust, us as no bank would want to lend money to someone
who doesn't have a valid ID card and it's hard to start a business with no
money."
She said that getting an ID card was very important for the
refugees. "We've lived here more than 20 years with no official
identification document. Can you imagine? Everywhere you go, it's the first
thing you're asked for. It hurts when you don't have any… That's why we all
came today to get them. Nobody went to work, the few people left at home are
making lunch."
Aside from the 14,000 Mauritanians, Senegal also hosts some
5,000 other refugees from 18 different nationalities. They will also receive
biometric ID cards. UNHCR has sent teams to remote areas to give ID cards to
those who would otherwise have problems getting transportation to card distribution
centres, mainly in northern Senegal.
By Mariama Mary Fall-Diaw in Richard Toll, Senegal