Joyce Afua Amankwa left behind three children
• Joyce Afua Amankwa died from a gunshot during the Monday bullion vast at Jamestown
• She and a police officer, Constable Emmanuel Osei died during the attack
• Joyce Amankwa left behind three kids, the oldest being eleven years and the youngest being six years
When armed gunmen attacked a bullion van at Jamestown, a suburb of Accra on Monday, June 14, 2021, resulting in the death of two people; General Constable Emmanuel Osei and Joyce Efia Amankwa, the story of how the latter lost her life to the bullet of the indiscriminate shelling robbers came in different narrations.
Some reports described the 40-year-old woman as a hawker who was shot after attempting to raise an alarm when the robbers struck while others described the mother of three as a pregnant woman who died in the melee of the attack.
Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb on Wednesday when the family of the deceased had gathered to mourn their lost relative, a brother of the deceased recounted how she got struck by a stray bullet leading to her death, unbeknownst of the chaos that would result in her death.
Mr Emmanuel Owusu, explained that his sister who sells in front of her house where the bullion van was attacked, had gone to her room to pick up a sachet water and a bottle of energy drink for a customer when the attack commenced.
“I was driving around Korle Bu when I received a call that my sister has been shot. I immediately rushed here and met the bullion van parked with the police officer lying in a pool of blood. I asked where my sister was and I was told she was inside; I went in and truly she was dead in a pool of blood,” he said.
“Someone came that he wanted to buy a drink, so she went inside to get the drink. The moment she left to the room coincided with the robbers’ attack on the bullion van. She didn’t know what was going on. You can see how one of the bullets went through the structure and struck her in the head, killing her instantly whiles she was still in the room”
“Some media houses have reported that she was shouting’ julor ei julor ei’ (thief, thief). That’s entirely false, when you see from where the bullet penetrated, even when I came to meet her lying in her blood, she still had the drink in her hand. The direction from which she was coming from and the way she was lying down will tell you more. She was not pregnant.
“She sells right here and someone came to buy from her so she got up to get the item for the person. When she got up, the bullion van came and a taxi came to stop in front of the bullion van. The driver got out to say he was buying water and it was at that moment that the robbers rushed in on a motorbike, brought out an AK-47 from the taxi and started shooting at the policeman and the driver of the bullion van. My sister never shouted; she didn’t even know what was going on.
If ghosts truly exist hers will not know what killed her because she had no idea what was going on. The robbers came when she left to get the drink. The area is also usually noisy and so even if she heard the gunshots, she would have thought of it as coming from some of the workers around here,” Mr Osei disclosed.
Describing the death of his sister as a painful and a sad one, Mr Emmanuel Owusu prayed for the immediate arrest of the deceased so they can face the law for their crimes.
Meanwhile, the Accra Regional Command of the Ghana Police Service on Wednesday’ visited the family of Joyce Amamkwa to commiserate with them over their loss.
The family of the deceased during the interaction with the Police delegation led by the Greater Accra Regional Commander, DCOP Afful Boakye Yiadom, appealed to the police for the immediate release of the body so they can go ahead and bury her.
The Police on their part assured the family of their efforts to expedite their investigations into the case and donated an undisclosed cash sum, drinks and water to them.