Robbers kill farmer for not obeying 'lie down' instructions

Mr Aduko Atampuri, a 26-year-old farm help was allegedly shot dead by suspected armed robbers on the Bandei-Vamboi road in the Sissala East Municipality of the Upper West Region.

The deceased who was among six other farmers was killed while on the way to the farm to harvest maize of their employers in Bandei, a farming community in the municipality.

DSP Kumpe Gbele, the Sissala East Municipal Police commander told the GNA that an Urvan bus with registration number AS 4796-09 from Tumu to Wa with passengers on board, and on reaching a spot between Bendei and Vamboi, the car was stopped by four masked armed robbers wielding a gun robbed the passengers of an unspecified sum of money and mobile phones.

He said in the course of the robbery, the six farmers who were walking from Bandei Township to the Vamboi direction chanced upon the scene, so the robbers ordered them to lie down but they bolted, and the robbers fired at them of which a bullet hit Aduko Atampuri in the abdomen.

He said a Police patrol team rushed to the scene but the suspects had already fled on two motorbikes into the bush while the victim died shortly upon arrival at the Tumu hospital.

Speaking with the Ghana News Agency, some of the other victims said they were trekking to the farm when they met the scene and saw a parked Urvan bus with the passengers lying in the middle of the road on their bellies, whiles three armed men each with a torchlight issued instructions to them in a language they could not comprehend.

It would be recalled, since the arrival of the military in the Sissala East in 2019, this is the first time armed men have shot and killed anyone.

Meanwhile, the Police Command has advised all drivers transporting passengers to Wa and Bolga and other areas to ensure there was always a Police presence or risk being arrested.

---GNA