A 20-year-old illegal miner, Haruna Hadi, has drowned in River Offin after he went in search of gold near the River at Assin Asamang in the Assin Fosu Municipality of the Central region.
According to reports gathered by Adom News, Haruna Hadi, went with his colleague to mine in the pit connected to the River and got drowned at about 11:00 am on Friday.
Assembly Member for Asamang-Nyardoam Electoral area, Elvis Boateng, who confirmed the incident to Adom News, said opinion leaders in the area are performing some rituals before the people will be able to recover the body from the river.
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“This morning around 11.oclock in the morning, I had information that one guy had drowned in a river so I went to the scene to verify whether it is true or not. 8 boys went there to do some mining so it was during the operation that this unfortunate incident happened,” he said.
This is not the first time such incidents have occurred in the community. In 2017 a similar incident was recorded where one person drowns in the same river. Similar cases have also been recorded in other parts of the country in recent times.
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In March 2018, two pupils of the Methodist Primary School at Akyem Takorase in the Denkyembuor District of the Eastern Region lost their lives when they went swimming in an abandoned galamsey pit.
The deceased pupils, Kwaku Bright and Jonas Aryeetey, both under age eight, went with a third person, Francis Dzifa to swim in the pit located in an area called Jobs Crama.
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Although government’s ban on all forms of small-scale mining remains, some persons outwit members of the anti-illegal mining task-force Operation Vanguard to mine illegally.
