One hundred and eight Ghanaians have been deported from Benin following the takeover of their residence by the Beninoise government for the construction of a habour, TV3 reports.
Made up of men, women and children, the deportees arrived in the Central Region where they were registered and screened by officials of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and the Ghana Health Service.
According to Eric Arthur, Regional Public Relations Officer of NADMO, the deportees will soon be dispatched to their respective communities across the country.
He however hinted that they are still expecting more returnees from Benin.
“We’ve been able to identify the communities where they live in Ghana. We are expecting a total number of 336. The only challenge we have is that, we don’t actually know when they are coming. To be honest, we received the information last night, at 2am,” he said on News360.
In June this year, it was reported that the Ghanaian fishing community at Akpakpadodome in Benin was facing eviction following the government’s decision to develop the area.
One of the elders in the community in an interview on Kofi TV lamented that the Benin government had refused to compensate them.
“People from Benin who leave in the area have been compensated but the government gave us nothing because we are from Ghana” he said.
The Ghanaians were expected to be deported in July but the exercise was extended to September following the intervention of the Ghanaian Mission in Benin.
The community, according to reports, is made up of 860 Ghanaians who survived on small-scale fishing.
Source: GhanaWeb
