Police beef up security in Wa with 305 personnel

A total of 305 police personnel on Saturday arrived in Wa to beef up security in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region.

The personnel, who are said to be specially trained in swimming, riding and driving were deployed to the area by the police administration to help restore calm after four months of mysterious murders and disappearance of persons in the municipality.

Between April and September this year, about eight persons have gone missing with seven of them being security guards (watch men) who were either killed or made to disappear under bizzare circumstances.

The rising incidents has led to pandemonium and fear among residents in the municipality, forcing the youth to stage a demonstration on Friday to register their displeasure over what they described as inactivity of the security services and chiefs to the security situation in the area.

Some of the youth, who embarked on the demonstration, locked down shops of some foreign nationals, particularly Nigerians, in the municipality, but the police acted swiftly to restore calm.

In an interview with the Ghanaian Times newspaper here on Saturday, the Regional Crime Officer, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Reynolds Manteaw, expressed confidence that beefing up the security in the region would help put the situation under control.

He hinted that the incidents called for such swift measures, saying, “as we speak now, a 52-year-old woman, Fatima Eledi, is at the Upper West Regional Hospital receiving treatment after she was attacked at her home on Saturday dawn by unknown assailants”.

According to ACP Manteaw, the woman, was rescued by her brother, who was just next door after she screamed for help.

“The attackers hit her with a cement block on the head and the sound she made from the pain drew attention of her brother to the room immediately “, he narrated.

ACP Manteaw said that “the brother reportedly met her sister lying unconscious in a pool of blood when he entered the room with no one in sight and rushed her to the hospital with the help of others.”

Security has since been beefed up with a 24-hour police patrols and visibility at vantage points in the municipality.

Meanwhile, the police was still investigating the recent crimes, particularly to uncover the whereabouts of the disappeared security guards.