Robbers Kill Carpenter At Ashaiman

A 34-YEAR-old carpenter, Atsu Agorvie, a native of Akatsi in the Volta Region and a resident of Newtown, an Ashaiman suburb, was yesterday dawn gunned down by some unknown assailants in what his family says was a failed robbery attack on the deceased.

According to Korshie, the deceased's brother-in-law, he had retired to bed with his wife when around 1am, he heard a gunshot in front of his room and was wondering who could have fired the shot when he heard a second one coming from the same direction as the first one.

He said initially, he had wanted to come out of his room but his wife prevented him from doing so, reminding him that it was not safe to step out, especially when he did not know what exactly was happening outside.

'Shortly after the second gunshot, I heard sounds of some footsteps running away from the entrance of my room and within a short period, I heard Atsu call my name and pleading with me to help him or else he was going to die,' Korshie narrated.

He said when he rushed out to see Atsu, he realized that the latter had been shot at close range and was lying in a pool of blood with his intestines gushing out, as he pleaded with Korshie to send him to the hospital.

'It was after I had gone to his side that other occupants of our house also came out to join in sending him to the Tema General Hospital where he was admitted until he passed away around 9:30 am this morning,' Korshie stated.

Asked if he knew what might have caused his brother-in-law's death, Korshie said the fact that the robbers failed to take away the motorbike on which the deceased rode home made it difficult to understand why they followed him to his house to shoot him.

Korshie, who is also a carpenter, described the deceased as a very simple person who was always quiet. He said Atsu worked with another person in another part of Ashaiman and sometimes arrived home early and sometimes very late.

'The truth is that Atsu sleeps in my wife's kiosk, which is some few metres away from our room, anytime he returned home from work at night.

Until his death, he was not using a motorbike and only got the bike from the man he worked with. We are all confused and do not understand why he was killed, with the killers fleeing the scene without taking anything,' Korshie remarked.

Others residents of the area who trouped to the scene on hearing about Atsu's death expressed shock and fear. They said the attack on the carpenter clearly demonstrated how dangerous robbers had become.

They appealed to the area's police to extend their night patrol activities to their area, adding that the level of security in their area was falling, with most of them expressing worry over the manner in which some of them were attacked by persons believed to be criminals.

At the time of going to press, the family of Atsu in Akatsi, upon hearing the shocking news about his death, was reported to be preparing to travel to Ashaiman to arrange his funeral and burial.

The body, according to Korshie, has been deposited at the morgue of the Tema General Hospital.

From Razak Mardorgyz Abubakar, Ashaiman