No Space For The Dead

THE people Yawhima, a village near Sunyani is battling with a problem that has forced them to appeal for help. They don't have a space to bury their dead.

The queen mother of the town, Nana Abena Nsua Gyeabour confirming this to 'The Spectator' said the land earmarked for the cemetery had all been encroached upon by developers. Currently, she said, over 20 buildings are on the land with others springing up like a new settlement.

She said about three weeks ago, a two-year-old boy died and had to be carried away to a nearby town for burial.

Papa Adonu, a native of the village, died two weeks ago and also had to be taken to Dormaa Ahenkro for burial while another man, Kwasi Mensah was transported to Abesim for burial.

Nana said two other people whose names were not immediately available are still in the morgue at the Sunyani Government Hospital because their relatives do not know where to bury them.

Nana Gyeabour mentioned the chiefs of the village as the people who are selling the lands. She said a chieftaincy dispute in the town is the cause as those litigating are scrambling for the resources of the town.

"They have sold everything and are selling the only thing left which is the cemetery. As a result there is no place to bury the dead."

She said she was accusing the chiefs as those selling the lands because a sacred place at the cemetery where rituals were performed in the town by the chiefs have all been sold.

She explained that the cemetery could not have been taken over if the chief who established the town were to be alive.

"This thing is happening few years after the death of Nana Yawhima in 1975. Since his death the clandestine sale of lands by some elders of the town started," she quipped.

Asked how the issue could be brought under control, the queen mother said, "traditionally, Yawhima belonged to the Dormaa Traditional Area, and in view that Oseadeeyo Osagyefo Agyeman Badu II, the paramount Chief of Dormaa, and a lawyer, by profession, is seriously working on it to bring sanity to the town."