Dome Faase residents afraid to return home despite withdrawal of heavy military deployment

Some residents of Dome Faase, where military personnel were deployed following a brutal assault on two soldiers, say they are afraid to return home although the heavy deployment have been withdrawn.

The military personnel were deployed in the town in the Obom Domeabra Constituency of the Greater Accra Region on Monday, August 24, 2020, to retrieve weapons seized by the residents from the soldiers.

The two soldiers clashed with about 30 residents of Dome Faase over a disputed land. The soldiers were nearly lynched by the angry mob.

Following from that, hundreds of residents fled the small town on Tuesday and Wednesday after the soldiers were deployed to the area.

GhanaWeb sources say the military personnel have since withdrawn after two military weapons seized from the soldiers by the angry mob were retrieved.

Also, some of the persons who brutally assaulted the soldiers have been arrested.

However, a resident told Citi News that he has been told a few military personnel are in the town monitoring activities.He vowedto only return to the town when all the soldiers are recalled.

“We have heard that the soldiers were at the Obom side. The place was calm. Only one or two military personnel were at that place monitoring things,” he said.

“I wanted to go back this weekend, but my parents are refusing, and I am a teacher. So I wouldn’t dare do that… Maybe next week [I will return] but certainly not this week,” he said.

The Omankrado for the Obom Domeabra community, Nii Addo, who also left the community on Tuesday says he is likely to return to the town later on Thursday to help calm tensions.

“I left before soldiers came there so as an elder of the community, I had to be safe, so I could help people out, so we can solve this matter. That is why I am not in the community now,” he is quoted in a Citi News report.

According the report, Nii Addo also maintains that his community is on the right side of the disputed land.

“The land belongs to us. It has been our property for 200 years so it belongs to us. They [the Akyem] are claiming it but it is for us.”