March was to be a watershed moment in the history of the Liberian refugees. The UN had already flagged that it was in repatriation mode, and wanting to begin in earnest the return of the refugees to Liberia. Liberia was now considered stable, if devastated. The UNHCR was offering to return refugees home, with a travel allowance of USD 100 and 20kg of personal goods.
Timing wise, there was a lot of anxiety, stress and desperation. To summarize very briefly, a number of women refugees staged a peaceful protest on the camp football ground, and drafted a petition asking for the amount to be increased to USD 1000. They also indicated that the other option of integration into Ghana was not a good option, as they would be permanently third class citizens, and asked for options for resettlement to Western countries.
The demonstration was misreported by several local newspapers, and a lot of resentment towards the refugees was created, along the lines of ingratitude towards their hosts of many years. Arrests were made, refugees without papers were deported, and many women were held in detention off camp and later returned. The upshot was that everyone felt that it was now time to go home, and that there was no long term future for Buduburam as a Liberian refugee camp. Repatriation efforts accelerated quickly from then on.
Every single person I know there now spoke of returning to Liberia within a 6-9 month period at the most. In some ways this was a very stressful realization, as Liberia lacks basic infrastructure and services. In other ways it was seen as an opportunity for a new future. Personally, although you would not have wished for the events, the resulting repatriation in a definite time frame does now have people looking forwards to rebuilding, and making definite plans.
All this happened while I was booking to go to the camp in April, just a few weeks after the demonstration.