Two people have been seriously injured after some persons believed to be retired military men allegedly butchered them at Manso- Aboaboso in the Amansie South District of the Ashanti Region.
The victims according to reports were among youth in the community who were preventing the suspected military men from engaging in illegal mining in a forest reserve in the area.
The military men numbering about eight according to some residents stormed the community to attack the youth in the area who marched to the alleged illegal mining site to burn all equipment.
The two victims Godfred Apomasu, age 35, an information center operator and Owusu Kwadwo, age 30, a farmer who sustained machete wounds have also been arrested by the Ashanti Regional Police Command.
Speaking to this reporter, a brother of the first victim Mr Apomasu Appiah disclosed that the eight-armed men who were in military accoutrement on Saturday, January 1, 2022 arrested his brother while asleep and assaulted him in the process.
“My brother was not even part of the men who stormed the site to burn down the machines, yet he was arrested and beaten to pulp by the suspected military men.
“The only crime he committed was that he used his information center to announce the missing of two of the men who went to the forest on the said day to prevent the activities of illegal miners in the forest,” he added.
The father of Kwadwo Owusu who was also butchered by the military men, Mr Alhaji have expressed worry over how his son was brutally beaten.
He has appealed to security officials in the Region to look into the matter and bring the perpetrators to book.
Meanwhile, the District Chief Executive for Amansie South Hon Clement Opoku Gyamfi has called for calm in the community.
He assured that security in the district will not shield any individual who will engage in any illegalities including illegal mining.
