Chaos broke out at the Anyinam police station following the arrest of two illegal miners by the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners in the Atewa East District of the Eastern Region.
The two, an excavator operator and the site supervisor, were mining illegally at a site located just a few metres behind the Anyinam police station when they were arrested.
The suspects reportedly diverted the course of the Birim River together with their team.
While the members of the Small-Scale Miners Association and the task force were handing over the suspects to the police, they were met with force from other illegal miners who had massed up at the station.
A known miner in the town, popularly identified as Koshow, allegedly confronted the task force in a heated altercation which almost escalated.
The angry community members and illegal miners who threatened to further engage the team at the premises of the police station were later calmed by the Anyinam Police Commander, DSP Iddrisu Mahama.
Godwin Armah, who is the Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners, narrated that his Association had to arrest the illegal miners because “the Minerals Commission will not give a license to anyone to mine close to a river or road, and so we had to arrest the operators and the excavator and hand them over to the police.”