He raped me – Girl, 16, accuses soldier of defilement

One of the military peacekeepers overseeing a dusk to morning curfew placed on Bimbila, the Nanumba North Municipal Capital in the Northern Region has been accused of defiling a 16-year-old girl.

The alleged victim, a form 2 student of Ponaa Junior High School is currently staying at home with abdominal complications and genital pains, following the sexual attack by the soldier, Starr News’ Eliasu Tanko gathered.

The incident allegedly occurred on Monday at about 9pm when the victim and her colleagues were about to depart to their houses after closing from a regular night preps.

The girl, now traumatized and in physical pains, narrated her agony to Starr News in an interview.

According to her, they have been studying in the classrooms every night and though the soldiers always patrol the area they never entered the school compound. She said, the soldier who allegedly raped her came to the school alone and was dressed in uniform holding a gun.

She said she and her colleague were waiting for a friend who had gone to buy water from a nearby store when someone among them shouted: “the soldiers are coming”.

She said they got frightened and fled into the dark from where the soldier was approaching them. She said she hid at the back of the classroom block but the soldier found her after a mobile phone she was holding ranged.

“I and my colleagues went to preps, and If we go to prep we close around 9.30pm. So, 9.30pm was over and I my colleagues we were going home and someone went to buy water and some of my colleagues got up and saw the soldier and said that the soldiers are coming, run. So I went and hid someplace, my colleagues called to see where I was hiding; they called me and the phone belled and the soldier saw me”, the victim said in the interview.

The soldier allegedly grabbed her up and asked her to follow him. She said he took her to another school compound, which had no electricity, where he undressed her himself and had sex with her for nearly 5 minutes while she groaned in pains.

Before allegedly raping her, she said, the soldier threatened to hand her over to police when she tried to resist “and he put down his gun on the wall and removed my shirt and raped me”.

The soldier even refused and seized the mobile phone of the girl when she told him she could call her father for the soldier to speak with him for her freedom.

“And he held me and send me to Hilo Junior High School and he asked me that what am going to do for him, and I said nothing, he said if it is nothing then he would send me to police then they will beat me and lock me, and I please forgive me if you want I can call my father and he said know that shouldn’t call my father then he took the phone, and he said that he wants to rape me and I said no and he forced me and sleep with me”, she added.

“I Need Justice For My Child” – Father

The father of the victim, Afa Gariba, a laborer working at the residence of the Municipal Police Commander, DSP Accolate Borbor, has demanded justice for his child.

The victim reported the abuse to her mother when she got home immediately after the soldier freed her.

She told her mother she was suffering some pains in her stomach and said she is afraid of contracting a disease.

Afa Gariba said what happened to his daughter has “worried” him, therefore wants the soldier to face the law.

“I want them to arrest him and to face the law to serve as a deterrent in the future. She is a still child, she is only 16 years. There is a lot of diseases out there, may she has been inflicted”, father bemoaned.

The father said he has spent more than Gh400 on medical bills since the incident was reported to him.

Starr News has seen a medical report confirming the allegation against the soldier. The report has been presented to the police who have told Starr News they had launched an investigation to the matter.

The victim and her parents have been invited by the police, Starr News has learnt. The girl has informed the police she would be able to identify this duty soldier who sexually abused her.