Tragedy hits two communities

Tragedu hits Akyem Wenchi and Akyem Swedru in the Eastern Region last weekend when two schoolboys drowned in the two communities.

Seventeen-year-old Bismark Tibuah, a form two pupil of Akyem Wenchi Methodist Junior High School (JHS), drowned in the Birim River at Wenchi last Saturday when he and his two friends had gone there to  swim.

Briefing the Daily Graphic at Wenchi yesterday, Nana Kwadwo Ayim, the grandfather of the deceased, said Tibuah and his two friends were returning from farm last Saturday when he met his untimely death.

He said after crossing the river by canoe  around 2 p.m, they left their headloads at the bank of the river and swam in it to cool off.

According to Nana Ayim, while swimming in the river, Tibuah drowned so his friends rushed home to inform his relatives who quickly organised a search party to retrieve the body, but their efforts proved futile until the next day.

In a related incident at Akyem Swedru, the Daily Graphic gathered from the District Police Commander, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Richard Gyebi, that another boy, 10-year-old Richard Owusu Apau, a class five pupil of the St Andrews Roman Catholic Primary School, decided to go for a swim in the Kosiko River after he had closed from school last Friday afternoon, and he also drowned.

DSP Gyebi stated that Apau’s parents, who were alarmed about his unusual long absence from home, mounted a fruitless search for him until 12 midnight when they found his clothes at the bank of Kosiko River.

He said as the parents suspected that Apau might have drowned in the river, they engaged seven divers, led by one Samuel Nyamkeh Yankey, to search for his body.

DSP Gyebi said the divers managed to retrieve the body in the presence of police personnel, who examined it and declared that there was no foul play concerning the death.

Meanwhile, the bodies of the two schoolchildren have been released to their relatives for burial after autopsy at the Oda Government Hospital.