INFORMATION Reaching DAILY GUIDE indicates that about 15 Fulani herdsmen have been shot dead following a clash between them and Konkombas at Tease, the capital of the Afram Plains South District in the Eastern Region, on Wednesday.
Currently, there is uneasy calm and disaster looms in the surrounding villages as the Konkombas settled on Kwahu lands have declared war on the Fulani herdsmen, killing them and their cattle.
Initial police reports on Wednesday afternoon indicated that five dead bodies were discovered while the rest were still lying in the bush.
DAILY GUIDE gathered that a Fulani herdsman last Friday took his cattle to feed on a Konkomba farmer’s crops, which infuriated the farmer and resulted in an exchange of blows. In the process, the Fulani man shot the Konkomba man dead and hid the corpse in the bush.
According to the Abetifi chief, Nana Agyemang Asiedu III, who disclosed the incident to DAILY GUIDE, the Konkombas then reported the matter to the police but a search for their brother’s corpse yielded no results.
The police, upon tipoff, arrested one of the suspected Fulani men who then led the police to the crime scene in the bush on Monday afternoon.
Reprisal Attacks
On discovering that their brother had been killed by a Fulani, the Konkombas declared war on the Fulanis, attacking and shooting them and their cattle on their farms, resulting in the deaths of about 15 Fulanis.
The action of the Konkombas has left the Fulanis in fear, forcing some to flee with their wives and children from their settlements.
Some were reported to have passed through the Akate border and descended to Begoro and its environs while others reportedly crossed the Volta Lake from Ekyi – Amanfrom to Adawso and headed towards Abetifi, Pepease and Ntoso areas for safety.
Last month Asante Nkrumah, the assemblyman for Oworobong electoral area in the Kwahu South District, launched an operation dubbed ‘operation kill the cows, in which he succeeded in killing over 800 cows in his area. He was later arrested and is currently standing trial at the Koforidua High Court with others.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Regional Police Command on Monday deployed some armed officers to Tease to restore calm in the area, but no arrests have yet been made.
The Regional Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Yeboah Nketiah, when contacted by DAILY GUIDE, said he could not confirm that the death toll had risen to 15 but said many of the Fulani herdsmen had been shot dead by the residents there.
Kwahu Chief Angry
The Acting President of the Kwahu Traditional Area, Nana Agyemang Asiedu, confirmed to DAILY GUIDE that he had announced on local radio stations that the residents of the Afram Plains area should not go to farm until further notice.
He indicated that his outfit had done its best to fight the nomadic herdsmen menace, especially the destruction of their crops with their cattle, to no avail.
He said, “The destruction of farms by cattle of nomadic herdsmen, which is causing tension beyond Agogo in the Ashanti Region, has now become the [major] menace in the Kwahu lands.”
According to him, many farmers in the Afram Plains are suffering the brunt of the destruction of their crops and water bodies in the area, adding that the nomadic herdsmen had been associated with all kinds of crimes including murder, robbery and rape, aside their cattle destroying crops of farmers in some parts of the country.
The Abetifi chief posited that in February the Eastern Regional Security Council re-introduced an operation called ‘Operation Cow Leg’ to also flush out the nomads from the region after several failed attempts.
As a result of the operation, the nomadic herdsmen now take the cattle for grazing at night under the guide of children who are often unable to effectively control the cattle.
“They end up destroying people’s farms. And once the destruction wasn’t caused during the day, the farmers find it difficult to identify the culprits,” he revealed.
The chief posited that what bored him so much was that the security men would only come and roam at vantage points and would not go into the bush and farmlands to drive the Fulani men away.
He appealed to the president and national security to deploy military armed men to the bush to flush out the nomadic herdsmen before the situation got out of hand.
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