Some victims of gunshot wounds sustained during the clash between residents of Nuaso and a team of ECG and military personnel in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region have narrated their ordeals with GhanaWeb.
Eight persons were shot on Monday, allegedly by the uniformed men assisting personnel of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) who are undertaking the installation of prepaid meters in the locality.
Three of the victims have already been discharged by the facility with one self-discharging against medical advice. The other four still remain on admission.
Furious residents confronted a team of ECG/military personnel who had gone to disconnect power to the community after the residents allegedly impeded the team that went to the area hours earlier to fix the prepaid meters in their homes.
This resulted in personnel of the military assaulting some residents in the process.
Though the people denied impeding the exercise, the team later proceeded to the area to uproot ECG poles and cut high tension cables supplying electricity to the Nuaso Old Town Community, leaving the place without electricity since Monday, 22nd August, 2022.
A clash between residents of the area and a team of ECG/military personnel a month ago at that same transformer led to the latter disconnecting power to the area for close to a month.
Narrating their ordeals from their hospital beds at the St. Martin De Pores Hospital at Agomanya on Tuesday, the victims recounted events that led to them sustaining the gunshot wounds.
One of the victims, Gideon Tetteh, a nineteen-year-old driver’s mate and resident of Nuaso was hit in the shoulder and currently recuperating. He insisted that he was not part of the protestors but only came out to buy an item when he was caught in the cross-fire.
“I was in my house but stepped out to buy something only to be shot. I fell and a man came to my rescue by bringing me to this hospital,” said the teenager. “When the soldiers see you, they aim their guns at you. I looked back and saw he (soldier) had pointed his gun at me so I jumped and was hit in the shoulder, else, the bullet would have hit my back.”
The nineteen-year-old who said he was going through a lot of pain called for the withdrawal of the military from the area. “They shouldn’t come here to shoot again, now I don’t have anybody helping me. I could have been at work but I couldn’t so I’m pleading for assistance from well-wishers.”
Lamenting that only one relative had come to visit him since he was brought to the facility on Monday, Gideon said he depended on the benevolence of good Samaritans to survive.
Sharing his situation as well as, 54-year-old Joseph Tetteh, a resident of Nuaso, a farmer and painter told GhanaWeb that he was shot while the soldiers repelled stone-throwing youth.
The bullet from the gun of a soldier graced the back of the head of the father of two children, wounding him in the process.
“Around three o’clock in the afternoon, there was a military gang at our area trying to destroy the electric cables and the ECG workers so they started to give warning shots so the people in the town started to run from that scene so I saw that there was a military man standing in front of me and that military man was trying to command the people to enter their houses.
“So I was also trying to return to the house but people were throwing stones so the military man thought I was also coming to throw the stone so I returned. Immediately I returned I heard the gun cork so I made an attempt to run from the scene but it was too late and before I realized he had shot me.”
Another teenager, a 17-year-old also sustained gunshot wounds in his thighs with the bullet penetrating through. He explained that he was caught in the crossfire while returning from the farm.
He added that he was going through a lot of pain and called for assistance to help him pay his medical bills.
His auntie, Teye Eunice said, “Our house is near the roadside so what we realized was that they (ECG and military were removing the wires so when we came out, we realized that they were beating the children, they were chasing them into the houses.
“We were later informed that my nephew had been shot in the thigh. He was on his way to buy an item when they shot him and we rushed him to the hospital.”
Dr. Ousman Alidu, Medical Officer in Charge of Emergency at the St. Martin’s Hospital said eight persons were brought in with two in critical conditions.
The four currently on admission, he said, were under observation.
