Military enlistment in Accra on hold – 6 Die, 5 In critical condition, 5 injured in Kumasi
The Ministry of Defence has suspended the military recruitment exercise in the Greater Accra Region indefinitely.
The Acting Minister of Defence, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, who announced this on the floor of Parliament yesterday, said however that the exercises in the other 15 regions would progress.
The suspension is also to ensure that further measures are instituted to ensure a seamless process.
He said the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) had instituted an internal board of inquiry to unearth the causes of the unfortunate incident.
The acting Defence Minister said the safety and dignity of applicants remained paramount, and that the ministry would take every step necessary to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy.
Brief
Briefing Parliament about the incident, the acting Defence Minister said the recruitment process started approximately a month ago with the submission of applications ending last Friday.
He said the shortlisted applicants were notified to start the process of documentation verification and body selection at the regional centres yesterday.
Dr Forson said the exercise was conducted simultaneously across all regions in a system designed to decentralise the process and reduce congestion.
The aim was to ensure transparency, fairness and nationwide accessibility, the acting Defence Minister said.
Disaster struck the country yesterday when six young females who were part of thousands of people who had converged on the El-Wak Sports Stadium in Accra for military recruitment met their unfortunate death.
The GAF confirmed the death of six in a stampede at the military recruitment centre.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Dr Frank Amoakohene, also confirmed that in the regional recruitment exercise at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi, five young persons sustained varying degrees of injury during a stampede and were being given the best possible medical care and full support.
Those who died were part of the 34 stampede casualties who were rushed to the 37 Military Hospital yesterday morning when about 21,000 young men and women thronged the venue to go through preliminary screening for possible enlistment in the various arms of the GAF.
Five other persons are in the intensive care unit of the hospital, and 12 are in fairly critical condition, with five of them being in stable condition.
This came to light when the President, John Dramani Mahama, visited those on admission at the military hospital a few hours after the incident.
President visits
The Commander of the 37 Military Hospital, Brig. Gen. Evelyn Vivian Abraham-Kwabiah, disclosed this to the media shortly after the President’s visit.
The President was accompanied by the acting Minister of Defence, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson; Chief of the Defence Staff, Lt Gen. William Agyapong, and other service chiefs; the Minister of State, Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu; the Deputy Minister of Defence, Ernest Brogya Genfi, other high-ranking government officials and security chiefs.
The President, who later travelled to Kumasi to launch one of the government’s flagship programmes in agriculture, made a detour to visit those on admission and was briefed on the incident and the treatment.
Statement
Earlier in the day, the GAF, in a statement, confirmed a stampede during its recruitment exercise at the El-Wak stadium.
“Preliminary investigations indicate that the stampede was triggered by an unexpected surge of applicants who breached security protocols and rushed into the gates ahead of the scheduled screening at about 06:20 hours.”
“The unfortunate incident led to the death of six potential recruits and many others, injured.
The injured are currently receiving emergency medical care at the 37 Military Hospital,” GAF said in a statement signed by Colonel Evelyn Ntiamoa Asamoah.
Observations
Young men and women are participating in the exercise through various recruitment centres across the country, with the El-Wak Sports Stadium considered by many as having the largest prospective recruits.
Large crowds were also seen in the Volta Regional capital, Ho, the Western Regional capital, Takoradi and other regional capitals.
Many of the prospective recruits started arriving at the venues late Tuesday night and the wee hours of yesterday.
Since many had been waiting for a long time, there was a mad rush to get into the inner perimeters of the stadium in Accra, with many of them scaling the high walls into the stadium with about 5,000 seating capacity.
However, after the incident, the Daily Graphic observed a solemn atmosphere at the 37 Military Hospital as scores of relatives of the victims and members of the public gathered at the facility.
There was an increased military presence at the hospital to provide security and maintain order in the area.
Eyewitnesses told the Daily Graphic at the El-Wak Sports Stadium that the thousands of young people who stormed the venue for the recruitment exercise were overwhelming and made things difficult for the military personnel.
“The El-Wak Stadium was filled with people, and there was a spillover onto the road all the way to the Lands Commission office,” a street hawker, Joyce Ackah, narrated.
Ordeal
Some of the potential military recruits, who recounted their ordeal to the Daily Graphic, said it was a traumatic experience seeing some of their colleagues’ lifeless bodies being carried to the mortuary.
One of them, who said he was a resident of Tema, blamed the military personnel at the gate of El-Wak Stadium for poorly handling the crowd.
“I got here around 4 a.m., but there was already a long queue.
The crowd grew thicker, and we were all trying to enter because some people were smuggling themselves inside.
The military officers applied some force to push us back, but amid the back and forth, some people started falling while others stepped on them,” he said.
Another applicant (name withheld) said he had been traumatised by the events of the day.
When asked whether he would give up the idea of becoming a soldier, he said, “Never! I want to be a soldier, so I will go all out.”
He said it was a terrible scene to see people being pushed down and lying helplessly on the ground.
Expert view
A security expert, Professor Vladimir Antwi-Danso, has described as unfortunate the death of the six potential recruits in a stampede at the El Wak Sports Stadium in Accra.
He said the unfortunate incident had brought to the fore the need to change how recruitment into the military was done.
He suggested that the screening should either be done in batches or decentralised in the regional capitals.
“We can do some of the screening at the University of Ghana, at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology or some other designated places in addition to the stadia we are using.
The stampede occurred because of the numbers. It is really sad that young people would lose their lives just because they were looking for employment,” he said.
Prof. Antwi-Danso, who was a former Dean and Director of Academic Affairs at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, was reacting to the death of the six potential recruits into the Ghana Armed Forces in a stampede at the El Wak Stadium yesterday.
Unemployment
He said that due to the unemployment situation in the country, people saw the military as the only place left for them, so a number of them applied to join the military, which far outweighed the number that could be admitted.
On whether the country’s method of screening people into the military, which involved them standing hours in the scorching sun in long queues, was appropriate, he said screening to join the military was done standing in the sun or snow everywhere in the world, adding that screening and medicals were things that could not be compromised in the military.
“As for screening, every military does screening before they are put there.
If you have some big scars on your body, you can’t be taken into the military.
If you have done some tattoos and you have pinched your nose, mouth, and those things, the military doesn’t like that. It’s a military culture.
These things will have to be done,” he explained.
