Four persons nearly lost their lives when they were hit by stray bullets from sporadic gun shots by some illegal miners at Banaso, a small mining community near Enchi in the Aowin municipality of the Western North Region.
DAILY GUIDE sources indicate that one of the victims is an official of a non-governmental organization called Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA) in the area.
The IPA official whose name was not given went to the community to conduct a survey on the performance of school children in the mining area.
However, when he got to one of the schools, he realized that most of the school children were absent and so he decided to visit some of the homes to ascertain why most of the pupils were not in school.
He hired a tricycle popularly called ‘Pragya’ for his journey however when they got to an area near an illegal mining site, they needed to cross a bridge to be able to enter the community.
However, the wooden bridge was destroyed and so it was difficult for the tricycle rider and the IPA official to enter the community.
While waiting to find a means to enter the area, some of the illegal miners, who thought the IPA official was a spy, rushed on him and in the process a misunderstanding ensued between them.
A source told DAILY GUIDE that one of the Chinese miners allegedly ordered the head of their security, who is a Ghanaian, to shoot to scare the visitors away.
“So the security man started shooting indiscriminately and upon hearing the gun shots some the community folks who stay nearby started running for their lives as the security guard chased them whiles shooting,” the source said.
According to the source, two female school pupils, the tricycle rider and the official of IPA, were hit by bullets from the gunshots.
The four persons were rushed to a nearby health centre for first aide treatment but later transferred to the Enchi Government hospital and then to the Asankragwaa hospital.
“Currently we learnt they have been referred to a hospital in Accra for further treatment”, a source indicated.
The police have commenced investigations to unravel what actually led to the shooting incident.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi