Seven Ghanaian fishermen return home after two-week ordeal at sea

The seven fishermen who went missing at sea for two weeks have finally returned home after living through a terrifying ordeal.

Their canoe broke down, leaving them completely at the mercy of the ocean currents until a massive international rescue mission brought them back safely to Tema.

The crew, Kwamena Akyem, 40; Kofi Emmanuel, 32; Uncle Amoah, 45; Kwamena Nkum, 29; Kofi Aboagye, 36; Doboa, 35; and Agya Badu, 42, set off from Sekondi toward Axim on October 9 in their canoe, named Second Chance, but their outboard motor stopped working in the middle of the trip.

With no way to steer, winds and strong ocean currents pushed them way off course, drifting them all the way into Togolese and Beninese waters.

Naval Captain Festus Osei-Brobbey, who heads naval training for the Ghana Navy, addressing reporters in during a press briefing in Tema on Thursday, explained that they received a distress alert from the Fisheries Commission on October 20, which kicked off a massive joint search effort.

The Ghana Navy sent out three warships, while the Air Force, Special Boat Squadron, and National Security flew patrols overhead.

It wasn’t just a Ghanaian effort, as Navies from Togo and Benin jumped in to help, alongside regional maritime groups and even the French Embassy, all coordinating under ECOWAS frameworks.

The Beninese Navy finally spotted them with the help of local fishermen later on October 21 and handed them over to a Togolese ship, which then transferred them to the Ghana Navy Ship (GNS) Aflao right at the maritime border early Thursday morning.

Despite everything they went through, all seven were in decent shape. The crew on the Ghanaian vessel gave them food, water, and medical checkups right away.

Recounting their time lost at sea, crew leader Kwamena Akyem shared that they mostly had to lean on prayer to keep their spirits up. At one point, things got so heavy that they had to throw their entire fish catch back into the ocean just to lighten the canoe so it wouldn’t capsize.

When they finally touched land in Tema, the Ghana Maritime Authority and the ports authority made sure they were taken care of. Each fisherman got a life jacket, fresh water, clothes, and a proper medical check, plus a comfortable place to sleep before making their way back home to Sekondi.

While everyone was thrilled with the happy ending, Captain Osei-Brobbey admitted the rescue exposed some glaring gaps in maritime safety. He pointed out that communication issues, a lack of night-vision gear, and poor distress signaling made the search harder than it should have been, suggesting that long-endurance drones and faster interceptor boats would go a long way.

On that same note, Professor Benjamin Betey Campion from the Fisheries Commission noted they are currently looking into affordable distress-tracking devices. The idea is to give fishermen a simple way to ping their exact locations to security agencies the second an emergency hits, hopefully preventing situations like this from dragging on for weeks.