One person was shot and killed by the Anti-galamsey task force in Obuasi on sunday night. The Task-force is a special initiative by the President of Ghana to fight off illegal miners in the country under the name Operation Vanguard. The taskforce consist of the police and the millitary.
According to ‘Isaac’, a resident of Wawase where the incident occured said the deceased did nothing to provoke the taskforce.
“He was just washing ‘dead-black’ in the Kwabrafo river when the military chanced upon him. Out of fear, he was about to run but was shot. The military took pictures of him and took him away”, he said.
Dead-black are rock particles which have already been extracted of the gold ore in them. It is believed that when these rocks are left for a while, they regain some gold ore again.
“Everyone was afraid to go closer to the place because the Wawase residence have been told to stay away from where the task force are for the next 10 days. The Committee Chairman went there to identify the person but was also beaten mercilessly”, he added.
“If this incident had occurred inside the bushes, they would have claimed we fired at them and they retaliated”.
But Major Kariba, the PRO of the Operation Vanguard Task force gave a different story altogether. According to the PRO, the military met resistance from illegal miners who were pelting stones and shooting at them. So they decided to also give warning shots to scare them away.
“…After everything, we canvassed the area and found one person with a gunshot wound and he was given first aid and rushed to the AGA hospital (Anglogold Ashanti Health Foundation) but was pronounced dead on arrival”, he said.
He warned illegal miners to stay off from the sites since they won’t hold guns and wait for the worst to happen to them.
“Don’t try to resist us, don’t try to fire at us, don’t throw stones at us, because we are carrying arms and we will not keep quiet and we won’t allow ourselves for you to injure us. We will resist and it won’t be good for you and it won’t be good for our operation”, he added.
Obuasitoday.com is closely following this story and will bring you more as the mysteries surrounding this issue unravel.