ADOAGYIRI ZONGO YOUTH AGAINST MASS BURIAL (BACK PAGE JAN 20)

AN attempt by contractors to exhume bodies from the Nsawam Adoagyiri Zongo cemetry for mass burial elsewhere to pave the way for the Nsawam-Kumasi bypass has created unrest in the community.
Over the weekend, scores of angry youth from Adoagyiri Zongo, wielding machetes, sticks, bows and arrows and other weapons, stormed the new site on the outskirts of the town and blocked the mass grave that has been dug for the purpose by Wag Construction Group of China, which is undertaking the road construction.
They engaged in a violent demonstration resulting in the destruction of some of the roofing sheets that have been used by the contractors to seal off the area and also vandalised the structure in which some tools for the construction work are being kept.
A visit to the Adoagyiri cemetery by the Daily Graphic revealed that the grave dug for the mass burial a few metres away from the cemetery had been covered, while at least 10 concrete graves had been destroyed.
Briefing the Daily Graphic on the incident, the Nsawam Municipal Police Commander, Superintendent Daniel Nyampong, said a group from the Adoagyiri Zongo went to the cemetery to bury their dead at about 5.30 p.m. last Saturday and discovered that a big grave meant for mass burial had been dug a few metres away from the cemetery.
He said the youth immediately rushed back to the community to inform their peers about the development, prompting a number of them to go back to the cemetery with all sorts of offensive weapons to cover the mass grave and register their anger at the contractors and their workers.
Superintendent Nyampong said the youth were demanding that until a new site was found for burial, they would not agree to the mass burial of bodies and had therefore appealed to the elders of the community to fast-tract efforts at resolving the issue.
To prevent further disturbances in the area, Superintendent Nyampong said a DISEC meeting attended by elders of the Zongo Community, the Municipal Chief Executive and the assembly member for the area, as well as one of the consultants for the construction firm, was held on Sunday to find a solution to the problem.
Meanwhile when the Daily Graphic contacted the elders of the Zongo Community at about 6.00 p.m., they denied rumours that bodies of dead relatives and members of the community had been exhumed from graves at the cemetery.
Attempts to reach the contractors of the project, however, proved futile.