NRC hears more stories of killings, abduction and tortures

Sekondi, August 6, GNA- A witness at Wednesday's sitting of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) at Sekondi narrated how his father, Mr Peter Boafo and an uncle were abducted by four soldiers 1979 and were never seen again.

Mr Peter Boafo Jnr told the Commission that on that day, the soldiers, with caps drawn over their faces ostensibly to hide their identities, knocked at the door at their house at Awudua near Tarkwa in the Western Region.

He said his father, who was a secretary to the local distillers' association, had in stock large quantities of sugar in his shop and which he sold to distillers of Akpeteshie at Tarkwa.

The petitioner said the soldiers ordered his father to remove his wristwatch and give it to their mother and asked him to bid the family farewell because he would not come back.

When his mother protested the soldiers assaulted her severely and went away with their father and the relative only known to them as "uncle". The following day the family called at all the police stations in Tarkwa but they could not find them. They were later told that their father and the 'Uncle" had been taken to Accra.

He said the soldiers came back, broke into the store and sold all the sugar, some rice and provisions to the public and took away the proceeds.

The soldiers warned them that they would all be killed if they performed any funeral rites or report the incident to any authority.

Mr Boafo said the family could not perform any rites even though the soldiers told them that their father and uncle had been killed. They could not make any enquiries about the whereabouts of the bodies for fear of their lives.

Witness said their mother also died a few days later, leaving him and his five siblings to their fate.

The oldest brother took to heavy drinking and no one knows his whereabouts while the rest are in Tarkwa doing virtually nothing for a living, he said.

In an answer to a question, Mr Boafo said even though he was very young at the time of the incident, he could remember vividly all that happened on that day.

Mr Boafo said one of his uncles took him to a workshop to learn how to repair refrigeration and air conditioning but he could not complete the apprenticeship because that uncle also died.

The Most Rev Bishop Palmer-Buckle, a member of the Commission, appealed to the public who have information about abductions and killings to come to the Commission and volunteer information. This, he said will help the commission to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding missing of people.

Another witness, Madam Claudia Ocran, spoke of how a policeman called Kwame Thomas, shot and killed a photographer at Essiama in 1984. The bullets hit her tight rendering her a deformed person for life. She said she was preparing meals when the policeman led a woman to collect her photograph from the studio of one Kwame at Essiama. She said following a misunderstanding between Kwame and the woman the policeman shot Kwame in the chest and he died later at the Effia-Nkwanta Hospital at Takoradi.

Mad Ocran said she underwent five operations and walks with the help of a stick.

Commission members who inspected her thighs said there were multiple scars.

She said she had not received any compensation and prayed the commission to recommend the payment of compensation to enable her to cater for her three children.

Mad Ocran said she was told that the policeman was executed for that offence.

Mr Stephen Mochia Kesson also told the Commission that his father, Mr Joseph Mochia, was killed by soldiers during the overthrow of the First Republic in 1966 and was buried with other soldiers in a mass grave. He wants the government to compensate the family because the death of his father disrupted his education and his five other brothers.