Uneasy calm in Alavanyo, Nkonya after weekend shootings

There is uneasy calm in the Alavanyo and Nkonya areas in the Volta Region following a shooting incident last week.

The recent upsurge in the conflict, believed to be linked to an age-old land conflict between the people of Nkonya-Tayi and Alavanyo-Kpeme that had negatively affected peace and development in the Alavanyo and Nkonya traditional areas, has so far claimed three lives.

There were sporadic gunshots from both sides over the weekend until a military and police team, led by the General Officer Commanding the Southern Zone of the Ghana Armed Forces, Brigadier General Thomas Oppong–Peprah, visited the areas and appealed to them to lay down their arms to avert the escalation of hostilities.

Background

The Volta Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Nana Asomah Hinneh, who spoke to the Daily Graphic at the weekend, said calm had returned to the area and that security had been beefed up to ward off any attack.

Last Wednesday, two citizens from Nkonya-Asakyire, Yaw Akombo, 40, and Mauwusi Prince Donkor, 31, were shot dead by some unknown assailants when they were returning from the farm where they had gone to tap palm wine.

One person, Richard Kalebi, who sustained serious injuries, is receiving treatment at the Volta Regional Hospital in Ho, while the bodies of the two have been kept at the Worawora Government Hospital. 

Meanwhile, the Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, and his deputy, Mr Maxwell Blagogee, paid a visit to the Volta Regional Hospital to console the victim of the shooting incident.

Dr Letsa said the situation was being monitored closely, adding that it would be treated as a crime and not just a land dispute.