Google search engine

The Bawku conflict which is directly linked to chieftaincy, politics and tribalism seems not to be ending anytime soon.

Hundreds of lives and thousands of properties have been lost since the conflict begun in the early 1980s spanning through many political regimes.

The current state of the Bawku crisis has been described as the worst since the conflict broke out.

Bawku, which is bordered by Burkina Faso, Togo and Niger was the heart of business activities and a town of prosperity where young men between the ages of 16 and 35 were well established in businesses and assisting their families.

But now, most of these people have been killed and many run out of the town to other places to start life again.

According to reports from security agencies in Bawku, at least two to seven lives are lost weekly in Bawku in the current renewed clashes which resurfaces in November 2021.

Gunshots are heard every night. When the minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, was defending an alleged shooting by some military men in the area killing about six people, he said in Parliament that the situation has grown beyond the “chieftaincy conflict to criminality by unknown persons.”

Many young men have escaped from the area after being targeted to die in some areas. For a case study on this development, our research and findings with available facts revealed that a young man by name Anyass Imoro Kadir fled the area with his two friends to Tamale in the Northern region for safety. Whilst in Tamale, his uncles noted that he and his friends are still not safe and suggested they move upwards to the nation’s capital of Accra.

During their stay in Accra, an opportunity to travel to US through Brazil came up which they grabbed to make up the loss they have incurred after fleeing Bawku.

The three persons including Anyass left the shores of Ghana to Brazil on July 28, 2022. Their agent was supposed to arrange for them to go to Mexico but had to trek 7 days to Columbia through the forest

Anyass and his friends followed all the protocols at the Mexico immigration including thorough interrogation and investigation by Mexican immigration officers. The Mexican Immigration thus provided them hotel accommodation to assist in the assessment and departure to their next destination which is United States of America.

Finally the three young men who fled Bawku because of the conflict arrived in the United States according to sources close to Imoro’s family.

The journey from conflict-prone Bawku to the United States for greener pastures was not an easy task which was a risk-taking adventure by the young men. Many such stories about young energetic men from Bawku fleeing because of the conflict is untold.

Hundreds of businesses have collapsed in Bawku and majority of the owners of these businesses are those young men who have fled for their lives and are struggling to pick the pieces together whiles their families are elsewhere outside Bawku due to the fear of being killed.

By Mohammed Rabiu Tanko|NR|Onuaonline.com