Ghanaian tourism delegation held hostage in Burkina Faso

A delegation from Ghana’s tourism sector was on Saturday night held hostage with their counterparts from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau in Burkina Faso during an ECOWAS subsector meeting in the country’s capital Ouagadougou.

A member of Ghana’s delegation who called into the GHone Newsroom during the attack said their captors were forcing them to sign a newly drafted constitution for the ECOWAS tourism subsector which they could not interpret because it was in French.

The source said they believe the owner of the Pacific hotel where they were held and the former chairman of the Ad Hoc committee, Pierre Zungrana, who was also a representative for Burkina Faso, instructed security at the hotel to lock them until they signed to accept the new constitution.

Starr News sources say ambassadors from all the member states whose representatives were held hostage stormed the hotel to demand the release of their citizens but were fiercely resisted by the representatives from the francophone countries, insisting the Chairperson from Ghana sign the document.

The representatives who were held hostage for 9 hours were eventually rescued by the police.

The matter has been escalated to authorities for action.