On Thursday, five athletes walked into the UNHCR national office in Accra. They came not as cases or statistics, but as competitors, five members of the Athlete Refugee Team midway through the African Senior Athletics Championships, carrying the weight of their pasts and the ambition of people who have decided that weight will not slow them down.

Tetteh Padi, who heads the UNHCR national office in Ghana, received them with gladness.

"The refugee athletes are an embodiment of the resilience of refugees. The fact that they're like you and me, who have gone, but they have gone through unfortunate circumstances. But these athletes have proven that being a refugee should not be a barrier to realising your full potential."

The five, Perina Lokure Nakang, Solomon Okeny, Abdifatah Aden Hassan, Dario Lokoro, and Kun Waar Liem, each arrived in Accra through different roads that all passed through the same kind of darkness. War in South Sudan. Nights in the forest. Refugee camps in Kenya. Years without parents. They train now under a world champion coach, compete at major global championships, and are, each of them, building something deliberate out of what was taken from them.

Nakang did not progress past Heat 2 of the women's 800 metres on Day Two of the championships. She finished, caught her breath, and looked forward.

"Next time, people will organise for me another game, I'll do my best, I'll take medal or gold, I'll try next year to put my effort."Hassan, the 1500 metre specialist who has been searching for his parents since fleeing Ethiopia as a child in 2009, frames his purpose simply. "My hope is to become a world classic championship and Olympian. And also I want to motivate other refugees all over the world and inspire them."

Okeny, who runs the 400 and 800 metres and discovered athletics by chasing a prize of water and glucose in Kakuma's heat, speaks about the track with a clarity that goes beyond sport. "When you step in the track, you participate with different people, different mindset, and you find yourself competing with a champion. It really gave me hope, and seeing myself growing, and doing my best."

Glory in Accra has been elusive so far. But Lieutenant General Jackson Tuwei, President of Athletics Kenya and Vice President of World Athletics, who joined the visit, made clear that the ambition of the programme stretches well beyond these championships. The Athlete Refugee Team, now a decade old, has largely drawn from East Africa. He wants that to change.

"We want to urge other countries that host the refugees in their countries to also take up in this matter, so that it can then take care of all the refugees within the continent."

The five athletes did not come to Accra to be celebrated for what they have survived. They came to compete. But the visit to UNHCR on Thursday was a reminder that what they are doing in Accra is bigger than Accra, that every race run, every heat contested, every personal best chased is also a message sent back to every camp, every child, every person still waiting for a reason to believe that their circumstances are not their ceiling.

As Tetteh Padi put it: "These athletes have proven that being a refugee should not be a barrier to realizing your full potential."

They are proving it in Accra, one race at a time.