A sixteen-year-old girl has met her untimely death at Teleku-Bokazo, a community near Nkroful, in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region after drowning in an abandoned galamsey pit.
The death of the young girl whose name has been given as Ernestina Agyei has since left the entire community of Teleku-Bokazo in a state of mourning.
The sad incident happened on the afternoon of Saturday, April 10, 2021. Reports available on our desks indicate that the deceased left home to the outskirt of the town to have a bath with the stagnant water in one of the abandoned pits.
Soon after stepping into the pit, the young girl, unfortunately, started drowning and that caught the attention of other children nearby.
They quickly run to inform some elders of the town about the sad incident. However, the young girl was far dead before they could save the situation.
Assemblymember of the area, Enock Hemens Blay in an interview with GhanaWeb’s Western Region Correspondent indicated that they spent over forty minutes searching before the lifeless body of the young girl was found.
“I saw her in the morning fetching water for someone and according to my information, she was looking dirty and decided to take a bath in the pit. In the process, she started drowning.
Unfortunately for her those who were around at the pit were kids and could not save her. The only intervention they made was to scream for help. They came home to inform some elders but when they arrived she had already passed”. He narrated.
According to him, the late young girl is a school dropout due to financial constraints. He added that the parents of the late Ernestina Yaw Adjei are divorced and the girl has been left in the care of her grandmother.
The body has since been deposited at the Axim Government Hospital morgue for further investigations. The deceased is expected to be buried on Thursday, April 15, 2021, at Teleku-Bokazo.
Mr. Enock Hemens Blay who sounded worried described the incident as unfortunate and called on the police to apply the laws on the owner of that galamsey pit.
Petition to close abandoned pits
According to Mr. Enoch Hemens Blay he has led some assembly members to petition the Ellembelle District Assembly on the dangers posed by the abandoned galamsey pits.
He says there are still snippets of illegal mining activities in the area but authorities of the assembly have refused to act.
“These pits are gradually becoming death traps for our children. When the illegal miners started their operations in 2020, I opposed it, I drew the attention of the Ellembelle District Assembly but nothing was done about it. I even became a threat, all because I wanted to block their livelihoods. Galamsey is not good and we should not entertain it, it poses a lot of dangers”, he stated
