Fear grips Ayikuma-Larteh residents following discovery of several bags of skeletal remains
Some residents of Ayikuma, near Dodowa, in the Shai Osu Doku District of the Greater Accra Region, are frightened after chancing upon several bags of skeletal remains of unknown origin dumped in the area, The Ghana Report has gathered.
In a report by Accra-based United Television, monitored by The Ghana Report, the residents were directed to a dumpsite in the area after days of an unusual stench filling the neighborhood.
According to Bernard Ato Arthur, a reporter with the Despite Media, who filed this report, the disturbing remains are that of human beings.
“I heard the news and came to this place. The place where we found these remains is called Ayikuma, near Dodowa and they share boundaries with Larteh. They are the remains of human beings, when we got here it was sad, you can’t breathe. Some of the human remains are old, some are slightly new, you could see some of them rotting away. It is very disgusting. It’s been packed in sacs, while some are tied in a polythene bag. You could see the skull and other parts of the body that I can’t mention” he stated.
“Some of the residents chanced upon this, there was an accident around this place so that is when people from Larteh, Ayikuma came around to help the person and they sensed something smelling and they saw this…they cannot tell when exactly when these remains were deposited here,” he added.
In a series of interviews, some residents of the area expressed worry, particularly because they do not know when this atrocity was committed, who committed it, how it was committed and where it was committed.
One resident indicated in the interview “almost 60 skulls are found here, when you look closely at the skeletal remains, you could see they have taken the flesh from it and it’s smelling terribly in this area”
Another said, “When we heard about the thing, it’s been over a week. Some people came to report it but we didn’t believe, it was yesterday that we all decided to come and watch for ourselves and it was then that we realized they are human remains. Right now, we don’t know whether the culprits are in this forest committing this atrocity or they do it from somewhere and bring them here, we don’t know.
A rider of a motorcycle, popularly known as ‘Okada’, stated that because of the nature of his work, he plies the route every day and is therefore terrified about the development.
He called for the installation of street lights along the road to ease the fear of the residents.
“I’m an Okada rider and I ply this route a lot, now I am scared about what we have seen. Now we are scared, we have been hearing news of people getting missing and haven’t seen them, we don’t know if these are their remains they have brought here, we are asking for street lights so that we won’t be scared” he said.
According to the Police in the area, the case has been referred to the Larteh divisional police under whose jurisdiction the case falls under.
They urged residents to be vigilant in order to help weed out the perpetrators.