Aburonehia community accuses Chinese miners of polluting source of drinking water

The people of Aburonehia, a farming community in the Sefwi Akontombra District of the Western North Region are in serious trouble, as River Fanoma, which is their main source of drinking water has allegedly been polluted by Chinese miners.

The chief of the town, Nana Koofie II told The Chronicle that the wanton mining activities, which have destroyed the river, commenced about nine months ago, but all efforts made to halt the devastation could not yield any positive result.

He lamented further that the Chinese and their local corroborators are mining close to River Akontombra, which they have also polluted.

Nana Koofie has, therefore, appealed to President Akufo-Addo to, as a matter of urgency, pay attention to their cry and quickly put in place adequate measures to stop the illegal mining activities to save their lives.

Nana’s call and the cry of his people followed a deadly development that has rocked the town in the last few weeks, after their main source of water for drinking and other purposes was completely destroyed by the Chinese.

Interview with the Chronicle

Speaking to the paper, Nana Koofie said, “It all started sometime in 2023 when we occasionally experienced a change of the colour of the water from our beautiful river, which was in existence even before the town.

“We made frantic efforts and traced the source to a galamsey activity in river Akontombra, which is located between Akontombra, the district capital and Bokaso, which is just a kilometre or two from Akontombra.

“We quickly notified the Akontombra chief about this development and within one week, the situation ceased, as the quality of the water from the river drastically improved, but the situation occasionally persisted.”

According to the chief, who feared that his entire community could be wiped out as a result of the deadly chemicals used by the Chinese miners, the situation has moved from bad to worse, in the last few weeks.

“Nobody could fetch water from the river and use it for cooking or any other purpose when we woke up on Tuesday morning. The water from the river we depend on has become murkier.

So, I quickly summoned all opinion leaders and the members of the yet to be inaugurated unit committee to trace the source of the strange development, because we were totally distraught,” the chief told The Chronicle.

He disclosed that they traced the source to the alleged Chinese illegal mining activities in the Akontombra River, which is a tributary of the Fanoma River.

He disclosed that the Akontombra River had been heavily polluted by the illegal miners with chemicals suspected to be mercury and lead among other dangerous substances that were harmful to human lives.

“They blocked the Akontombra River and mined in it and later unblocked it, so all the deadly and dangerous chemicals have flown into the Fanoma river, since the Akontombra river joins river Fanoma.

Upon a visit to the town, it was realised that dead fishes were floating on the surface of the river, but it was not known what might be the cause of the deadly situation.

Some of the town folks, however, suspected that the fishes might have died following the release of dangerous substances used by the miners into the river Akontombra.

Unit Committee Chair

The Unit Committee Chairman for the Aburonehia Electoral Area, Mr Enock Nokoewawe, corroborated the Chief’s account and indicated that water from the river could not be used for any human activity.

“Farmers now cannot go to their farms because they cannot depend on the water from the river to quench their thirst on their farms, neither can they use it to water their crops.

“Before I moved to Akontombra this morning, I had to use sachet water to bath and every household must do the same thing every day, until we are able to have the river in good state.

“My concern is that how long can the entire community depend on sachet water for cooking, drinking and washing among others? It seems that they just want to kill all of us so that they can use our cocoa farms for gallamsey”, he stated.

Assembly member

The newly elected assembly member for the Aburonehia Electoral Area, Eric Okra, told the paper that the lives of the people were in real danger, as they lacked the power to stop the powerful Chinese, whose activities are a real threat to their lives.

He said since the whole community depended on the Fanoma River for all their activities, the pollution of the river has adversely affected every aspect of their daily lives and activities, adding that pupils had to stay away from school.

A teacher of the Aburonehia Anglican School, Mr Solomon Ennin, told the paper that since the outbreak of the massive pollution, school attendance has been affected.

“Both the teachers, the people and the community as a whole, depend on the river for whatever we do, so the current state of the river means that we always have to queue for water from a mechanised borehole.

Imagine the whole community going to queue for water from the mechanised borehole before you can get water. In fact, the pupils are not coming to school because of the situation caused by the miners”, he stated.

MP intervenes

Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament for the area, Mr Alex Djornobuah Tetteh, has told The Chronicle that he has stopped the mining activities of the Chinese.

“When the news first came to my attention, I went there and impounded their machines, including three excavators, and burnt all their structures.”

According to the MP, a month after his initial intervention to stop the menace, the miners returned to continue with the destruction.

“About a month ago, I was told that the Minerals Commission from Bibiani stormed the area to assess the situation and allegedly indicated that the area was someone’s concession and that the person has sublet it to another company.

“I was told that they had all the necessary legal documents to mine so close to the river. I was told that there was a meeting where the company was advised to mine responsibly so that it doesn’t pollute the water,” he said.

However, their activities became not just terrible but dangerous, when they clandestinely channelled their waste water, which contained poisonous chemicals into the Akontombra River.

Consequently, the Fanoma River was poisoned when the Akontombra River flowed into it and made it not just unwholesome, but also poisonous for human consumption and other activities.

“Following the devastating nature of their activities, principally how they destroyed the Fanoma River upstream to the extent that it could not be used for any human activities, I called on the district police command to take immediate action and flash them out.

“In my view, their so called permission to mine did not include destroying the lives of my constituents by deliberately poisoning their main source of water”, he explained.

Since the intervention by the MP, the miners, The Chronicle gathered, have abandoned the site and the polluted river was gradually returning to its normal state though the paper could not immediately tell whether it was wholesome for human consumption.

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