A six-year-old boy is alleged to have drowned in a river while crossing to school.
The incident took place at a farming Community at Torgodo in the Yilo Krobo Municipality in the Eastern Region.
The body of Tetteh Osmond is yet to be retrieved despite a search by a Joint Team of NADMO and local divers.
Residents of Torgodo including school children and pregnant women risk their lives daily to cross the River Porpon, whenever it overflows.
The Recent heavy downpour has led to the overflow of the river, and residents were forced to cross, carrying their foodstuffs to the Nkurakan market center, while pupils swim to attend school at Nyamebekyere, a nearby community school in the Yilo Krobo Municipality in the Eastern Region.
“I don’t know how my boy died. I was on the farm getting ready for the market when my phone rang. The caller told me my son has drowned” the mother of the 6-year-old boy, Janet Abena told GBC’s Radio Ghana.
According to the Chief of Torgodo, Nene Alex Tetteh, schoolchildren have had to sit home for months when the river overflows while those at Junior HJHS are carried on shoulder to cross.
The absent of proper bridge over the river and lack of road network is affecting residents particularly women who mostly go to market and worst of all during labor.
“Women in this community suffer a lot because of the absence of a bridge over the river. We carry foodstuffs, walk through the river to market. Sometimes it has to take our husbands to save us from drowning. For pregnant women, it is horrendous to see. We have planned not to vote for any assembly member or President or MP again until they construct bridge and road ”
An Aspiring Assemblyman in the area, Stephen Numutsu, is calling on the government to construct a temporal concrete footbridge over the river to aid school children to go to school and farmers to transport their foodstuffs to market centers to make income.
Currently, the community has constructed a small wooden bridge over the river to make crossing easy but it gets submerged at the slightest rainfall compelling residents to walk through the river.
STORY BY: MABEL ADORKOR ANNANG.
