Border Breach: Immigration Service intercepts ’18 foreigners’ in Asankrangwa
Eighteen foreigners have been arrested for breaching the country’s border protocols. They were intercepted by a Joint Operations Taskforce (including officers of the Immigration Service, BNI and Police) led by the Asankrangwa Municipal Command of the Ghana Immigration Service DSI/Francis Kofi Apaw.
Seventeen of the arrested foreigners were Burkinabes and the other an Ivorian.
A release from the Western Region Command of the Ghana Immigration Service, and signed by the Public Relations Officer, Assist. Inspt. Moses Manford Akakpo, said they acted on an intelligence they received on Friday 1 May, 2020, around 0920 hours. It disclosed further that the ‘arrested border breachers’ in two Nissan Caravan mini busses with registration numbers GX 2137-17 and AS 1899-17 en route to Kumasi.
“These all-male suspects, are aged between Seventeen (17) and Fifty-Five (55) years according the information retrieved on their ID cards” the release noted.
According to PRO, investigations had revealed that all the suspects entered the country through an unidentified illegal route at Sewum in the Aowin Municipality, of the Western Region.
“At the Sewum Border Post, which falls under the Dadieso Sector Command of GIS, a team of Immigration Officers led by the 2IC, DSI/DESMOND ALABISON, received the subjects for further investigations; before finally handing them over to the Ivorian authorities” he noted.
Assist. Insp. Moses Manford Akakpo added that an emergency meeting was held to determine the fate of the suspects, out of which a resolution was reached to repatriate the illegal ‘ECOWAS migrants’
“The severity of the security challenges this poses to our dear country, in the wake of our fight against the dreaded covid-19 pandemic, informed the Municipal Security heads to convene an emergency meeting, to quickly determine the fate of the suspects. At the said meeting, a unanimous decision to see to the immediate repatriation of these illegal ECOWAS migrants through the Sewum Border Post was arrived at”, the statement concluded.
This brings the number of interceptions and repatriation of persons made by the Ghana Immigration Service in the Western Region, through intensified surveillance/patrols and with the support of the various sister security agencies to about One Hundred and Ninety (190), since the closure of the country’s Borders.
