By Victor Aihawu, Director, Platform for Cooperation on Mixed Migration (PCMM)

For years, the Reintegration Assisted Fund for Returnee Migrants has been presented as a vital safety net for those returning to their countries of origin. It is designed to help returnees re-establish their lives, start businesses, pursue education, and reintegrate into their communities. However, the reality on the ground is often quite different, leaving many returnees disillusioned and unsupported. Instead of fostering a sustainable return, the fund has frequently fallen short of its intended goals, with returnees either using the funds to re-migrate or mismanaging it due to inadequate guidance.

A Mismanaged Promise: Squandered Opportunities and Broken Dreams

One of the most glaring issues with the Reintegration Assisted Fund is the lack of proper oversight and professional management. Many returnees, left to navigate complex reintegration challenges on their own, often misuse the funds they receive. Without a clear understanding of how to allocate resources effectively or how to develop sustainable income streams, returnees frequently face financial difficulties soon after receiving the funds. This has led to a cycle of “re-exodus,” where returnees, unable to sustain themselves in their home country, are driven to re-migrate in search of better opportunities.

The Real Causes of Failure: Inexperience and Lack of Sustainable Support

The failure of the fund is not simply due to returnees’ mismanagement but also to the incompetence of those overseeing the programs. Many handlers of returnee programs lack both the requisite experience and the specialized skills necessary to manage sustainable reintegration initiatives. Being in the sector for years does not necessarily translate to genuine expertise; effective reintegration requires an in-depth understanding of developmental best practices, personalized care, and a commitment to long-term outcomes.

Professional reintegration should encompass a comprehensive support system tailored to the individual needs of returnees. This means addressing immediate needs like shelter, healthcare, and trauma counseling, as well as providing vocational training, access to financial literacy programs, business mentorship, and long-term support. Sustainable reintegration should not be limited to short-term financial aid but should extend to building capacity, fostering resilience, and enhancing local community acceptance.

Learning from Best Practices: A Holistic Approach to Reintegration

Successful reintegration programs in other parts of the world offer valuable lessons that can help reshape the Reintegration Assisted Fund. Best practices suggest that effective reintegration requires a multi-faceted approach that addresses not only economic needs but also social and psychological factors. Some key elements include:

1. Individualized Reintegration Plans: Tailoring support to each returnee’s unique needs, skills, and aspirations is crucial. This involves conducting thorough assessments to understand their background, challenges, and goals before releasing any funds.
2. Financial Literacy Training: Returnees should be provided with basic financial training to help them understand how to manage their funds, make sound investments, and develop a savings culture. Teaching them about budgeting, debt management, and savings could prevent the fund from being squandered.
3. Business Mentorship and Skills Development: Providing ongoing business mentorship can significantly improve the chances of successful entrepreneurship among returnees. Programs that offer hands-on training, mentorship, and coaching in business development, coupled with access to micro-loans, can help returnees create sustainable livelihoods.
4. Long-term Monitoring and Support: Reintegration is a process, not a one-time intervention. Continuous follow-up and support are essential to ensuring that returnees can navigate challenges, adapt to changing circumstances, and maintain progress toward stability. Monitoring should focus on both personal development and the sustainability of funded ventures.
5. Community Involvement and Acceptance: Effective reintegration is not just about the individual—it also involves the community. Efforts should be made to sensitize and engage local communities to support returnees. This involves educating community members about the benefits of reintegration and fostering a sense of shared responsibility for returnees’ success.
6. Strong Partnerships with Local Stakeholders: Collaborating with local governments, NGOs, vocational training centers, and businesses can provide returnees with a broader network of support. This can also help link returnees to job opportunities, skills training, and local resources, which are essential for long-term reintegration.

Bridging the Gap: Moving Toward Effective Reintegration Policies

The gap between policy promises and ground realities has undermined the credibility of the Reintegration Assisted Fund. Returnees often feel betrayed by what was meant to be a fresh start but has instead turned into a cycle of failed expectations. To move forward, there must be a renewed focus on designing programs that prioritize human-centered solutions, sustainable development, and genuine expertise.

Policymakers and program managers should invest in training reintegration officers, improving financial literacy modules for returnees, and introducing stronger monitoring systems to track outcomes. Reintegration must be seen as a long-term commitment rather than a quick fix, with emphasis placed on building skills, providing meaningful employment opportunities, and supporting personal growth.

Conclusion: From Failed Promises to New Beginnings

The Reintegration Assisted Fund was designed to offer hope and a chance for a fresh start, but its current implementation has fallen short of this promise. Without a shift toward sustainable reintegration practices, the fund will continue to be a failed promise that drives returnees back into the uncertainty of re-migration. It is time to rethink, restructure, and refocus efforts on a holistic, sustainable approach that delivers real change and fulfills the promise of a new beginning for returnees.

L’expérience traumatisante de déportation vécue par Abdulai Daramy, un Sierra-Léonais expulsé de force d’Allemagne en 2011, a ravivé les inquiétudes autour de l’accord présumé entre la Sierra Leone et les États-Unis visant à accueillir des ressortissants de pays tiers expulsés du territoire américain.

Daramy affirme que son expérience d’expulsion forcée lui a laissé des séquelles physiques et psychologiques qui ont persisté bien longtemps après l’atterrissage de l’avion de déportation en Sierra Leone.

Selon le récit de son expérience, Daramy s’est fracturé la main lors de son transfert d’un centre de détention vers un vol de déportation en Allemagne.

Mais pour lui, cette blessure physique n’était que le début d’une épreuve bien plus profonde.

À son retour en Sierra Leone, Daramy a rencontré d’autres personnes expulsées qui tentaient de reconstruire leur vie après leur renvoi forcé. Beaucoup d’entre elles, a-t-il constaté, étaient confrontées au rejet de leur famille et de leur communauté, au chômage, à la pauvreté, aux traumatismes psychologiques ainsi qu’à des difficultés d’accès aux soins de santé et à d’autres formes de soutien essentiel.

« Je ne veux que personne d’autre ne vive ce que j’ai vécu », a déclaré Daramy.

Son expérience personnelle allait plus tard inspirer des initiatives visant à soutenir les personnes expulsées à travers le Réseau des anciens demandeurs d’asile de Sierra Leone (Network of Ex-Asylum Seekers Sierra Leone), une organisation créée par d’anciens expulsés pour venir en aide aux personnes confrontées aux conséquences de la détention, de l’expulsion forcée et d’une difficile réintégration.

L’histoire de Daramy a pris une importance particulière dans le contexte des informations selon lesquelles la Sierra Leone pourrait accueillir des ressortissants de pays tiers expulsés des États-Unis dans le cadre d’un arrangement conclu entre les deux pays.

Selon plusieurs informations, un premier groupe de personnes expulsées serait déjà arrivé en Sierra Leone, comprenant notamment des ressortissants du Ghana, du Sénégal, de la Guinée et du Nigeria.

Alors que le gouvernement sierra-léonais aurait défendu cet arrangement comme s’inscrivant dans le cadre de ses relations diplomatiques avec Washington, l’expérience de Daramy soulève une question fondamentale : que devient une personne expulsée après son arrivée ?

Pour Daramy et de nombreux autres anciens expulsés, le voyage ne s’arrête pas lorsque l’avion touche le sol.

Au contraire, la déportation peut marquer le début d’une autre lutte difficile : trouver un logement, obtenir un emploi, surmonter la stigmatisation sociale, renouer avec sa famille et sa communauté et faire face aux conséquences psychologiques de la détention et de l’expulsion forcée.

Au fil des années, le Réseau des anciens demandeurs d’asile de Sierra Leone a appelé à l’adoption de politiques gouvernementales plus solides pour soutenir la réintégration des personnes expulsées, notamment par une assistance sociale et un soutien en matière de santé mentale.

L’arrangement présumé avec les États-Unis a toutefois suscité de nouvelles inquiétudes quant à la capacité de la Sierra Leone à fournir un soutien, une protection et des services de réintégration adéquats, non seulement à ses propres citoyens de retour au pays, mais également aux ressortissants étrangers envoyés dans le pays.

Ces préoccupations sont particulièrement importantes au regard des informations selon lesquelles certaines des personnes expulsées seraient originaires d’autres pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest.

Des observateurs des droits humains et des détracteurs de cet arrangement ont également appelé à une plus grande transparence, notamment à des clarifications sur le statut juridique des personnes déportées en Sierra Leone, les procédures utilisées pour les contrôler et les garanties mises en place pour protéger leurs droits.

Des questions ont également été soulevées sur le sort des personnes expulsées qui ne pourraient pas ou ne souhaiteraient pas retourner dans leur pays d’origine après l’expiration de tout accord de résidence temporaire qui leur aurait été accordé.

Daramy a reconnu ce qu’il décrit comme une réalité politique : les organisations de la société civile sierra-léonaise et les communautés concernées pourraient avoir un pouvoir limité pour empêcher des politiques de déportation décidées par des gouvernements plus puissants.

Il estime toutefois que le processus peut encore être rendu plus humain.

Au cœur de ses préoccupations figure la nécessité d’associer les anciens expulsés et les organisations ayant une expérience directe des retours forcés à l’élaboration des politiques qui affectent directement la vie des personnes déportées.

L’expérience de Daramy, ainsi que celle d’autres anciens demandeurs d’asile, illustre la manière dont les conséquences de la déportation peuvent aller bien au-delà de l’application des lois sur l’immigration et du contrôle des frontières.

Pour de nombreuses personnes de retour, la partie la plus difficile de l’épreuve commence après la déportation.

Alors que la Sierra Leone fait face à une controverse croissante autour du présumé accord de déportation avec les États-Unis, l’histoire de Daramy devrait renforcer les appels en faveur d’une plus grande transparence, de garanties juridiques solides et d’un soutien concret aux personnes envoyées dans le pays.

Pour les anciens expulsés, la question centrale n’est donc pas simplement de savoir si la Sierra Leone doit accueillir des personnes déportées d’autres pays.

La véritable question est de savoir ce qu’elles deviennent après que l’avion a atterri.

The traumatic deportation experience of Abdulai Daramy, a Sierra Leonean who was forcibly removed from Germany in 2011, has brought renewed attention to concerns surrounding Sierra Leone’s reported agreement to receive third-country deportees from the United States.

Daramy said his experience of forced removal left him with physical and psychological scars that continued long after the deportation flight landed in Sierra Leone.

According to an account of his experience, Daramy suffered a broken hand during his transfer from a detention facility to a deportation flight in Germany.

But for him, the physical injury was only the beginning of a much deeper ordeal.

On his return to Sierra Leone, Daramy encountered other deportees struggling to rebuild their lives after forced removal. Many, he found, were confronted with rejection by families and communities, unemployment, poverty, psychological trauma and difficulties accessing healthcare and other basic support.

“I don’t want anyone else to experience what I experienced,” Daramy said.

His personal experience would later inspire efforts to support deportees through the Network of Ex-Asylum Seekers Sierra Leone, an organisation established by former deportees to assist people grappling with the consequences of detention, forced removal and difficult reintegration.

Daramy’s story has become particularly significant amid reports that Sierra Leone may receive third-country nationals deported from the United States under an arrangement between the two countries.

Reports indicate that an initial group of deportees has already arrived in Sierra Leone, including nationals of Ghana, Senegal, Guinea and Nigeria.

While the Sierra Leone Government has reportedly defended the arrangement as part of its diplomatic relationship with Washington, the experience of Daramy has raised a fundamental question: what happens to deportees after they arrive?

For Daramy and many other former deportees, the journey does not end when the aircraft touches down.

Instead, deportation can mark the beginning of another difficult struggle — finding accommodation, securing employment, overcoming social stigma, reconnecting with family and community, and coping with the psychological consequences of detention and forced removal.

Over the years, the Network of Ex-Asylum Seekers Sierra Leone has called for stronger government policies to support the reintegration of deportees, including welfare assistance and mental health support.

The reported US arrangement has, however, generated fresh concerns over whether Sierra Leone has the capacity to provide adequate support, protection and reintegration services not only for its own returning citizens but also for foreign nationals sent to the country.

The concerns are particularly significant following reports that some of the deportees are nationals of other West African countries.

Human rights observers and critics have also called for greater transparency over the arrangement, including clarification on the legal status of those deported to Sierra Leone, the procedures used to screen them and the safeguards available to protect their rights.

Questions have also been raised about what would happen to deportees who are unable or unwilling to return to their countries of origin after the expiration of any temporary residency arrangements.

Daramy acknowledged what he described as the political reality that Sierra Leonean civil society organisations and affected communities may have limited power to stop deportation policies agreed upon by more powerful governments.

However, he believes the process can still be made more humane.

Central to his concern is the need for former deportees and organisations with first-hand experience of forced returns to be involved in shaping policies that directly affect the lives of deportees.

Daramy’s experience, and those of other former asylum seekers, illustrates how the consequences of deportation can extend far beyond immigration enforcement and border control.

For many returnees, the most difficult part of the experience begins after deportation.

As Sierra Leone navigates growing controversy over the reported US deportation arrangement, Daramy’s story is expected to strengthen calls for greater transparency, legal safeguards and meaningful support for those sent to the country.

For former deportees, the central question is not simply whether Sierra Leone should receive deportees from other countries.

It is what becomes of them after the aircraft lands.I can also make it more investigative and hard-hitting, with a stronger focus on Daramy’s personal trauma as the opening angle.