<<Print>>

With the headache of looking for funds to take care for his 16 year old  brother, Christopher Bama, who was tortured by five soldiers on a flimsy excuse of stealing a mobile phone still hanging on her neck, the woes of Patience Bama, is far from over.

Patience, who is yet to come to terms with the torture of her young brother, suffered at the hands of soldiers, has started receiving telephone calls, mainly from private numbers, threatening to kill her for going to the media with the story and also reporting to the police.

The victim’s sister, who is now afraid to go back to Tamale, told The Chronicle in a telephone interview that she had received several strange calls with unknown numbers and from unidentified persons who kept threatening her for involving the Police and the media in the assault case involving her 16 year old brother, Christopher Bama, and five soldiers from the Tamale Airborne Force.

She told the paper that she was due to return to Tamale for her final examination in school this week (name of school and specific date for her return withheld), but she is now afraid due to the threats on her life.

Patience Bama, who mentioned for the first time to this paper, how she was also manhandled and beaten up by one soldier at the Military Hospital in Tamale for questioning why her brother was put in handcuff while on admission, said that the strange callers were demanding to know when she would come back to Tamale and to know where she stays in Tamale.

“All along, I knew these soldiers were not happy with the way I was all over the place trying to help my brother. At the Kamina hospital, one of the soldiers slapped me and kicked me with his boot in my lower abdomen and wanted to pounce on me even when I fell down.

“It took my mother and other patients to prevent him from beating me further. I quickly ran from there and later realized that I was bleeding seriously. When I went to the hospital later, I was also admitted.

“But I have kept all these maltreatments because my concentration was on my brother. But looking at the way things are going, I can see my life is in danger”.

Patience Bama told the paper that she had duly reported the threats to the Northern Regional Crime Officer and would lodge a formal complaint with the Police, immediately on her return.

When contacted, the Northern Regional Crime Officer, ASP John Anane, confirmed that Patience Bama had reported the threats on her life to him on phone and that he had advised that she makes a formal written complaint to the police.

According to him, he suspects the threats were coming from some close friends of Corporal Sampson Atuahene and his other accomplices.

The Crime Officer, who assured the lady of all the necessary protection, encouraged her (Patience Bama) not to entertain any fear and thus described the threats as ‘empty’.

Patience Bama has become a target for possible elimination by the unknown persons, following her strong stance to ensure that her 16 year old brother, Christopher Bama, who was brutally assaulted and tortured by some five soldiers from the Tamale Airborne Force receive justice.

Christopher Bama was accused of stealing a TECNO mobile phone belonging to one Corporal Sampson Atuahene of the Tamale Airborne Force.

Corporal Atuahene and his four other soldier friends, including one Collins Agyei Boamah were said to have handcuffed and hanged the boy on top of a mango tree.

With his legs not touching the ground, the 16 year old boy, believed to be a long-standing errand boy for Corporal Sampson Atuahene, was beaten till he allegedly fell unconscious, and yet the soldiers would not show any mercy.

To further pressure the boy to produce the missing phone he claimed he never took, the two soldiers, according to an eyewitness, melted plastic material (polythene bags) and dropped them on Christopher’s naked body until he regained consciousness.

According to Patience Bama, a Senior Sister of Christopher Bama, the boy went to the military quarters at Shishegu near Nyohini to fetch water with someone’s motorbike.

Later, the soldiers called him to come back to the quarters, where they accused him of stealing the mobile phone and brutally assaulted him.

Christopher could not pass urine and was, therefore, given a foley catheter to aid his urination. Before his transfer to Nsawam Government Hospital, the victim, according to the Chief Executive Officer of God Cares Community Hospital in Tamale, Dr. Richard Opoku, the patient (victim) had started behaving abnormally and was persistently vomiting, which he said, was a sign of intracranial injury (head injury).

His condition, according to Doctor Opoku, was not getting better as further medical examination revealed that he had started discharging some fluid in the abdomen, and that they could not readily determine whether it was blood or peritoneal fluid.

At the moment, Christopher Bawa is on admission at the Nsawam Government Hospital where he is battling with his life. The Chronicle has gathered that the victim is likely to be transferred to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for medical attention.