Border closure: Nineteen Nigerians intercepted en route Niger

Nineteen Nigerians, who attempted to travel out of Ghana to Niger through Burkina Faso contrary to the President’s directive on the closure of all the national borders, have been arrested at Hamile, in the Upper West Region.

The illegal migrants were all males, aged between 14 and 43, were arrested on Friday, at about 0820HRS at Beat two, an unapproved route bordering neighbouring Burkina Faso in the Hamile Sector Command of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).

A statement signed by Mr Ibn Yussif Duranah Abdul-Mumin Seidu, the Upper West Regional Public Relations Officer (PRO) for GIS, and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa said they were resident in the Ashanti Region before attempting to migrate to Niger for greener pastures.

According to the statement, the culprits had been screened by the Port Health Officials and sent back to the Ashanti Region where they lived.

Mr Seidu told the GNA that the GIS Officials at the Babile Inland Check Point arrested ten Burkina Faso nationals “during a routine exercise of screening and profiling of persons in buses and other vehicular traffic”.

“The ten ECOWAS nationals were onboard a commercial Utong bus with registration number GT 4356-16 from Hamile travelling to Kumasi”, he said.

He explained that the illegal Burkinabe migrants, who sneaked into Ghana through unapproved routes, had been screened and handed over to the Burkina Faso authorities for the necessary action to be taken.

“Until otherwise decided, the President's directive on the closure of our borders as part of the measures to combat COVID-19 in Ghana remains enforced. Again, the unapproved routes linking neighbouring countries are inaccessible as it is illegal”, Mr Seidu stated.

While entreating migrants to desist from travelling through unapproved routes into and out of Ghana, the PRO gave the assurance that the GIS would not relent on its efforts to nib the unlawful practice in the bud.

“We call on Ghanaians to volunteer information to help secure our territorial borders”, Mr Seidu said.