purposes. The Rwandan refugees or former refugees (some retain refugee status), however, are reluctant to approach their consular authorities for copies of birth certificates in Rwanda (always assuming that the birth of the child in Rwanda was registered), and their children are therefore effectively excluded from the state school system. This requirement creates obstacles that prevent even naturalised refugees from enjoying their rights as nationals. The procedures to obtain a residence permit may also be quite onerous, even for ECOWAS citizens, without the assistance of UNHCR or another agency; and virtually impossible to fulfil where the person concerned has no documents from the country of alleged nationality. Despite the invocations of the cessation clause, there remains a real lack of capacity in West African countries to implement local integration for former Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees — or even the much less numerous Rwandans — with a specific plan for their legal status and economic selfsufficiency. Box 8: Lamin Koroma: A Sierra Leonean former refugee in Guinea I was born in Freetown in 1970, both my parents were Sierra Leonean. I was a news presenter and I was declared wanted when the rebels attacked. I left Freetown in March 1999 and came to Guinea by the boat. We were met by the Red Cross and I have been here since then. I was given a document by the Red Cross in 1999, and then an attestation de réfugié when they snapped [photographed] me in 2005, which enabled me to go to hospital and also to travel around Guinea. In 2008 they told me there were three options – return to Sierra Leone, stay in Guinea or further international protection. I chose further international protection. Then they gave me an appointment and an interview but I was rejected. I appealed, but that was also rejected. They gave me no reasons for the rejection but they said the refugee status was removed. They gave me another slip that gave me just one year more of refugee status. They told me that from 1 January 2010 I could no longer be a refugee. There are too many problems in this country. They will not give me a job as a foreigner, even a cleaning job – there is too much discrimination. My brother went home to Freetown, but he was killed there. I am with an Ivorian woman who is also a refugee; she came here in 2006. She recently gave birth to my son, just three weeks ago, but they would not see her at the hospital. We went there at midnight and said we were refugees and they said “we have no place for you people”, so we went home and she gave birth there. We have not registered the birth of the baby – you have to have the hospital slip to be able to register a baby, that is how it works. Without the slip you cannot go to the commune. I have no documents to prove my nationality so that we can get a birth certificate saying the child is Sierra Leonean. 4.4.4. The paradox of “local integration” The lack of a plan for the legal status of former refugees is most obvious in the case of those Sierra Leonean and Liberians who have chosen to opt for “local integration” on invocation of the cessation clause, and have been faced with a paradoxical outcome. Rather than being given nationality documents in the country where they have held refugee status (often for longer than the period that would qualify them for naturalisation), they have rather been told to apply for a passport from their country of origin – on the basis of which they can then apply for a residence permit in the country of refuge. But this solution is seen as less than helpful for those receiving the documents: Liberians and Sierra Leoneans resident in Guinea for example, believed that local integration should mean receiving a Guinean national identity card. Although in principle a Liberian or Sierra Leonean passport and Guinean residence permit would give them access to naturalisation as Guinean, this is in practice not an accessible option. So although those who have obtained a passport from their “home” country do 65