ECOWAS delegation held at Aflao border for one hour

Aflao, April 23, GNA - An ECOWAS delegation led by Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, its Executive Secretary, on its way by road to Lome from Accra was also held up at the Ghana-Togo frontier at Aflao as a result of the closure of the Togo side on Friday.

Ghanaian border personnel at Aflao told the Ghana News Agency that the ECOWAS convoy was allowed into Lome after waiting for an hour. Four Togolese military officers who arrived from Accra in the company of seven others from Benin, Nigeria and the US were however allowed in while their counterparts were refused entry. "Our Togolese counterparts keep telling us that they are doing things on orders from above," the officials told the GNA. They said some Togolese soldiers were picked up for allowing stranded travellers to cross into Togo from Wudaoba, a village 10 kilometres from Aflao.

The officials said it took them sometime to convince their Togolese counterparts to allow some Junior Secondary School (JSS) finalists who reside in Lome to cross over to Aflao to take their final papers in the Basic Certificate Education Examination (BECE) on Friday. They said other school pupils who also crossed the border into Ghana on Friday morning for school on their return were held up for hours until 2000 hours before they were allowed into Togo. The officials said they had to organise some snacks for the young ones aged between two and four years.

The border closure by Togo on Friday has left many travellers stranded at both sides of the border.