Man Chopped To Pieces like “corned beef”

Joseph Agyeman Atta, a 25-year-old worker of Suhuma Timber Company Limited at Dwinase near Sefwi-Wiawso in the Western Region, who was allegedly chopped to pieces last Tuesday by a veneer Hogger milling machine he was operating, has been buried. According to information gathered by Daily Guide newspaper, which was corroborated by the Sefwi-Wiawso Police, there was a huge hole where plywood passed to the Hogger milling machine for processing into sawdust for power generation.

On that fateful day of 13th October, 2008, it was gathered that Atta was operating the Hogger machine alone as was the routine at the factory’s premises, while another worker was at the other end. The worker at the receiving end of the milling machine observed that the incoming sawdust was abnormal because it was a mixture of blood and something akin to “corned beef”. He immediately alerted the company’s management who went to where Atta was supposed to be operating the machine from, but he was nowhere to be found. They then examined the sawdust and realized that it was actually mixed with something that looked like human blood and flesh that had been chopped to pieces, which made the company’s management lodge a report with the police.

The police therefore came to the scene and took samples of the “mixed sawdust substance” into a sack and sent it to the Sefwi-Wiawso Government Hospital for examination. When Dr. Brobbey, Medical Superintendent at the Hospital was contacted on phone, he told Daily Guide that he identified some ground finger, human flesh and blood mixed with sawdust. "It was flesh, blood and sawdust ground up. It was bad," Dr. Brobbery said.

The relatives of Atta were then called in and informed about the development, after which they took the sack containing the “mixed sawdust substance” for burial. According to DSP Joseph Anneh, Sefwi-Wiawso District Police Commander the Police were carrying out large-scale investigation into the case.

Among the indigenes of Sefwi Wiawso and Dwinase however, it was believed that Atta’s mysterious death was the handiwork of the gods of the river near Suhuma Timber Company. ome of the people, particularly the traditionalists, indicated that ever since Gliksten Ghana Limited was handed over to Suhuma Timber Company Limited, the current management had not sacrificed even a cock to the river god beside the factory, though the former company performed the necessary rites annually through the fetish priest. A native of Sefwi-Wiawso therefore told the Daily Guide newspaper that the god’s were angry and therefore used Atta as a "sacrificial lamp" and that unless the company pacified the gods, more workers would die later.