General News of Tuesday, 24 April 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-04-24
Deaths have been recorded at galamsey sites despite governments ban on illegal mining activities
A 23-year-old illegal miner has drowned in a pit after he went in search of gold near the Offin River in the Atwima Mponua District of the Ashanti Region.
According to reports, Abu Ibrahim went with his colleague to mine in the pit connected to the River near Amadaa, and got drowned at about 6:00pm on Monday.
Assembly Member for Nkrumah-Bentinko Electoral area, Martin Prempeh, who confirmed the incident to Citi News, said opinion leaders in the area are performing some rituals before the divers will be able to recover the body from the river.
“Yesterday [Monday], around 6 o’clock in the evening, I had information that one guy had drowned in a river so I went to a town called Amadaa to verify whether it is true or not. Two boys went there to do some mining so it was during the operation that this unfortunate incident happened.”
Similar incidents have been recorded in other parts of the country in recent times.
In March 2018, two pupils of the Methodist Primary School at Akyem Takorase in the Denkyembuor District of the Eastern Region lost their lives when they went swimming in an abandoned galamsey pit.
The deceased pupils, Kwaku Bright and Jonas Aryeetey, both under age eight, went with a third person, Francis Dzifa to swim in the pit located in an area called Jobs Crama.
Although government’s ban on all forms of small scale mining remains, some persons outwit members of the anti-illegal mining task-force Operation Vanguard to mine illegally.