An injured soldier
The rural Greater Accra town of Dome-Faase in the Ga South Municipal was on Tuesday rendered a ghost town following a security incident involving soldiers and the youth.
Left in the trail of the mayhem were two soldiers, one of them Sergeant Asare Addo Clement. Both sustained various injuries and are currently on admission at the 37 Military Hospital, DAILY GUIDE has learnt.
Two accounts were said to have triggered the incident, with both, however, hinging on land.
One account points at a lingering land dispute between the traditional authorities of Dome-Faase and the people of Akyem Apadwa town of Mponuahene in the Eastern Region as being the source of the incident.
A coalition of Ga communities inhabiting the area were said to be peeved about what they claim was the usurpation of their farmland by the Akyem Traditional Council, with the resultant resistance leading to a clash between the two.
Not even the deployment of soldiers to restore normalcy made headway, with two of them allegedly suffering untold assault at the hands of the angry people at Dome-Faase.
Quarry Version
Another version states that soldiers were deployed from the Army Headquarters, Accra, to the town to provide security to a quarry site, a situation which appeared to have angered the locals who ignored warning shots and pounced upon the soldiers and inflicted injuries on the two.
The residents accused them of not having been officially assigned to the operation they were executing while others also claimed they were land guards impersonating the soldiers.
The soldiers were said to have failed to convince their attackers that they were on official duties.
The negative situation informed the reinforcement of soldiers to the scene.
How it Happened
Reports have it that on Tuesday August 25, 2020, the leader of a youth group, yet to be identified, and the chief of the area, organized a press conference to announce their displeasure against some land guards and military personnel terrorizing them over their lands.
The information indicated that the press conference later turned into a demonstration and in the process, the youth, numbering about hundred, ended up at the quarry site where they began pelting stones at the soldiers on duty at the location.
The soldiers, according to the report, had wanted to disperse the crowd by firing in the air but the civilians pounced on them and brutally assaulted them with offensive weapons.
The civilians also burnt down the soldiers’ tent, a heavy duty machine and a vehicle during the mayhem.
A subsequent reinforcement of soldiers to the location and a crackdown compelled most of the young men to flee the town.
For the few who remained, they dreaded an onslaught from soldiers after what their colleagues had suffered at the hands of the youth of the suburb.
One of the residents left behind claimed that they were victims of harassment of soldiers in the area.
Earlier in the course of the mayhem, the Kasoa Divisional Police Command deployed men to the area but later abandoned the mission, leaving it for the Greater Accra Regional Command.
Yesterday, Maj. Rtd. Derrick Oduro, Deputy Minister of Defence, confirmed the incident and said that the army had launched a special operation to arrest all the perpetrators.
“We’ve thrown our men out there to fish out everyone who took part in the assault. There’s no hiding place for the perpetrators, the video coverage of the incident is aiding us to identify and arrest the people,” he said on Kasapa FM in Accra.
DAILY GUIDE learnt that in less than 24 hours after the incident occurred, more than 50 people were arrested by a team of military personnel who stormed the town.
The Deputy Minister also revealed that the two soldiers who were brutally assaulted were on official duty (Operation Calm Life) patrols.
By Linda Tenyah