Ghana's Aliens

There have been long-distance 'international' migrants in West Africa throughout its history. Fulani pastoralists move their cattle with the seasons in patterns which ignore international borders. Mende and Hausa traders have settled wherever opportunities seemed promising. In more recent times, the cocoa farms in Ghana and Ivory Coast have drawn large numbers of seasonal laborers, especially from Upper Volta. Ghanaians provide skilled labor in the mines of Sierra Leone and Liberia. Enterprising Nigerians have set themselves up as traders over a very wide area and have participated in diamond digging (not always legally) in Ghana and Zaire. Ghanaians fish along most of the coast and inland as far as Mopti in Mali. Farmers and pastoralists hit by the present drought in the Sahel have moved south into northern Ghana and Nigeria for sur? vival.