Ethnic clashes erupt in Binduri

Three people sustained injuries when two ethnic youth groups clashed on Thursday at Gumyoko, a farming community near Bazua in the newly created Binduri District of the Upper East Region.

The clash at Gumyoko soon reached Bawku where the extensions of the two ethnic groups, the Mamprusis and Kusasis, fired sporadic gun shots from about 2145 hours to 2300hours.

A security source told the Ghana News Agency that calm has returned to Bawku as economic activities have not been hampered by the clash.

The source explained that a group of Kusasi and Mamprusi youths from the area had some confrontation during a dance at Bazuaon the eve of Christmas and were asked to meet the Assemblyman for the area to resolve the problem.

The source said while the Kusasi youth accepted the invitation for settlement on Thursday the Mamprusi youth refused to attend the meeting and instead confronted the former while they were returning from the meeting.

The source said in the process, the Mamprusi youth also attacked an NDC base, a place where party youth sit to fraternize and a house belonging to a Kusasi man, by throwing stones at the structure, and in the process injured the three people including two JHS students and a pito brewer.

A combined team of military and police personnel have been deplored to Gumyoko to stem the clash while patrols in Bawku have been intensified.

The victims sustained various degrees of injuries; they were rushed to the hospital, treated and discharged.

As the clashes extended, the youth also vandalized other properties at the Bazua market area running into thousands of Ghana Cedis.

The source said intelligence collected pointed to the fact that there was a remote cause which was speculations about Mamprusi youth’s intention of celebrating the Damba festival in the Gumyoko community which is predominantly Mamprusi.

The source explained that the Bawku gun shots were therefore a reaction to the clashes at the Bazua area and warned that there was an immediate need for stakeholders to nib the problem in the bud before it escalated.

The Municipal Chief Executive for Bawku, Mr Abdulai Musah, who spoke to the GNA on telephone from Kumasi, said security personnel in Bawku were in control of the situation.