Coronavirus: GIS to repatriate 20 Burkinabes, Togolese

The Ghana Immigration Service is planning to repatriate about 20 foreigners who entered the country illegally on Thursday, 14 May 2020.

The aliens are from Burkina Faso and Togo.

They tried bribing Ghanaian immigration officers at the Kato checkpoint near Brekum in the Bono Region to give them easy access.

Since Ghana’s borders were closed in March when the country recorded its first positive case of COVID 19, hundreds of foreigners have used unapproved route through Cote d'Ivoire to Dormaa and Sampa in the Dorma and Jaman North districts, to Ghana.

Assistant Superintendent of Immigration, Isaac Osei Asamoah, told Class News the 20 aliens have “given us the specific places that they passed”, adding: “We’ll take them back to wherever they are coming from”.

“We have the thermometer gun here, so, we’ll check them ourselves. If your temperature is high, then we’ll call the hospital people to also come in”, he told Class91.3FM.

Explaining how the aliens enter Ghana, Mr Asamoah said: “When they get to Cote d’Ivoire border, they pay their way out. Last Friday, we intercepted seven people and what they told us is that they [locals within the border community] took ten thousand CFA from each of them and then they showed them the route to use to enter the country”.

“So, when they get here and we also intercept them, they try to pay their way out, which we don’t agree to”, he said.

Meanwhile, the Bono Regional Commander of Immigration, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration Charles Yaw Bediako, has said a lot of the aliens were intercepted at the various checkpoints.

“We mounted a checkpoint on the Sunyani-Berekum highway at a place called Kato. Since we mounted that checkpoint, we have intercepted 125 foreigners and repatriated them.

“A lot of Togolese in Cote d’Ivoire want to come through Ghana to Togo, so, they don’t have any means to come but to use unapproved routes”, he disclosed.

According to him, “Since the border was closed, we have intercepted and repatriated 1,089 foreigners. We have a place like Gonokrom, 62 foreigners have been intercepted; Nkrankwanta in Dormaa West – 221 foreigners; Sampa has repatriated 272, Kofi Badukrom – 133”.

He complained that the border community is not helping the situation.

“Unfortunately, the border residents, sometimes, aid the foreigners to enter the country. They use motorbikes and other means and they create unapproved routes to get the people into the country.

“Because of that, a place like Nkrankwanta, the commander there has seized about 21 motorbikes and these persons were just carrying people from Cote d’Ivoire to Ghana.

“They are thinking about the money they’ll get from these people without thinking about the effects of the virus. That is very unfortunate. So, we are appealing to the border residents; they are part of us, we are one”, he noted.