The Police in the Volta Region have begun investigations into the death of six persons who drowned after their boat capsized on the Volta Lake on Tuesday.
According to a witness report, the incident occurred when a canoe that had 10 people on board was hit by a storm. It is reported that out of fear, all the victims gathered at one side of the canoe causing it to capsize.
Initially, it was reported that four persons had drowned in the Volta Lake at Kpando, with six survivors.
However, the Volta Police Public Relations Officer, Prince Dogbatse, revealed that the incident claimed six lives; four ladies and two young men, leaving four survivors.
According to him, the attention of the police was drawn to the incident by a group of fishermen who happened to be at the scene.
Mr Dogbatse indicated that the group of men managed to rescue some of the victims.
“We heard the information regarding the incident from some fisher folks who happened to chance on the development. So they attempted to rescue the victims but unfortunately, some persons in the canoe died.
Speaking to Joy News, a woman, who lost two of her grandchildren, indicated that the children were on their way to an okro farm to harvest and sell some of the okro in order to raise money when the incident happened.
One of her grandchildren, who was identified as Evelyn Gadagoe, was a final year student Senior High School (SHS) student who was apparently raising money to finish her course at Kadjebi-Asato SHS.
Narrating the unfortunate incident, she said, “the children have been working on farms for money. One of such works took them to an overbank community.
“Water entered the canoe, most of them panicked so they moved to one side of the canoe causing it to capsize. Three of my children left home and only one returned so I lost two of my grandchildren in the accident that occurred on Tuesday,” she recounted.
Meanwhile, Mr Dogbatse said police officials have been deployed to probe further into the death of the victims.
“Currently, they have all been identified by the relatives and we are going on with our investigation and hopefully we will conduct postmortem on the bodies and then we will see the way forward,” he said.
