Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States, Victor Smith, says five Ghanaians have been killed in the country since he took up the post, with most of the deaths involving guns.
Speaking on TV3 programme Key Points on Saturday, 7 November, Mr Smith said Ghana had protested its citizens’ deaths while recognising that the US government could not be blamed for every incident.
“In total, five people have died since I became the US Ambassador in different circumstances; most of them are gun-related,” he said. “I have issued a statement expressing our unhappiness about what is happening; we cannot accuse the US government of not doing enough, but we need to protest that Ghanaians are unhappy.”
Two Ghanaians have been killed in the Bronx in the past week.
The body of 24-year-old Joseph Owusu, a caregiver who had been missing for about two weeks, was found at a dump site in New York. Footage seen on 6 November 2026 by American broadcaster ABC7 shows two people, believed to be adult men, removing a large black duffel bag from the boot of a white saloon car at night.
The pair dragged the bag on to the pavement before leaving. The next day, another man was filmed placing it on a metal stretcher and wheeling it away. A person searching for scrap metal later discovered Mr Owusu’s body.
His brother, Kojo Yeboah, said the family wanted answers.
“I need justice for Joseph. I want the truth to come out because my brother didn’t deserve to die the way he did. He’s only 24. He had a lot of living to do. I cried till my nose was bleeding because I couldn’t eat,” he said.
An autopsy was under way, according to Ghana’s Washington embassy and New York mission, but no cause of death had been announced.
Javits Badu Nkansah Frimpong, aged 15, was shot on the morning of Thursday, 29 October, while walking to school in the Bronx. He died at St Barnabas Hospital.
President John Dramani Mahama said the US needed to confront gun violence and the ease with which firearms could be bought. Speaking at Jubilee House on Thursday, 5 November, after returning to Ghana, he said Javits had arrived in the US less than a year earlier to join his father.
“The issue with Javits Frimpong is, he was so young, 15 years old, and had just been in the United States barely a year to join his father, and this happened,” he said.
Mr Mahama said the exact motive remained unknown, with bullying among the possibilities being considered by the NYPD.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said on Monday, 2 November, that three hooded people wearing surgical masks chased Javits, shot him, collected the shell casings and left by subway. Detectives were examining robbery, mistaken identity and school bullying. No suspect has been named and no arrest has been announced.
Mr Smith linked the violence to the US constitutional right to bear arms.
“It is part of the amendments in their constitution that give citizens the right to bear arms. So, anybody can go to a gun shop to buy one,” he said.
He added: “In the world today, there are so many stress factors of modern living, so mental health is becoming a major crisis.”
“Sometimes, someone is stressed, but he is well dressed, and you will think that everything is okay. The day you realise that something is wrong, they may have guns shooting people.”
Mr Mahama said Ghana’s New York mission had visited Javits’s family and had been instructed to provide assistance. He praised Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister James Gyakye Quayson, who received Javits’s mother in Accra, and said the Foreign Affairs Ministry was paying for her journey to New York.
New York police have asked anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers on 1-800-577-TIPS.
