By Nutor Bibini Nutor
Several islands and communities along the Oti River, especially at Tokuroano in the Krachi East District, have placed a distress call to the government and Philanthropists to come to their aid. Although they lost all their property, including farms, to the floods that came with the opening of the Akosombo and Bagre dams, they were forgotten during the distribution of relief items.
According to GBC News Correspondent, Nutor Bibini Nutor, who has spent some days with the victims, Tokuroano is a peaceful peasant farming community in the Krachi East district of the Oti region, with farmers and fisherfolks who depend on the Oti river for their livelihoods.
The town has most of its suburbs and villages lined along the Oti River, along with some islands that fishermen call home.
Agbasa is one of such villages along the Oti River, where some two hundred fisherfolks and farmers live. Today, the village is almost a “ghost town”, after losing their homes and farms to the massive floods that came with the spillage of the Bagre and Akosombo dams.
When our news team visited, many homes, mostly mud houses, had been washed away by floods. Like several others, this bathroom is a make-shift one that has replaced a collapsed one.
This kitchen collapsed upon encountering the floods. 48-year-old Martha Ablena is a mother of eight. She is a fishmonger and farmer who lost several acres of food crops, such as maize and groundnut, under cultivation to the floods when the Akosombo dam was spilled. She is now without a sustainable livelihood.
One key sign that struck the GBC team was the sight of numerous local ovens that fishmongers use to grill and preserve their fish for the market having caved in.
A teenager, Ebenezer Agbasa, showed me how his room was inundated by the flash floods, forcing him and his siblings to flee that fateful night to high ground for life. He also showed me the remains of their family’s kitchen that have been washed away, as well as his father’s house, which got its wall broken by the Akosombo and Bagre dam spillage.
The Chief of Tokuroano-Agbasa, Torgbui Agbasa Yao, recounted the enormous loss caused by the recent floods. He said the floods have washed away large tracts of farmland, affected schools and schooling, and broken down houses.
The nightmare has placed them in a state of shock and fear of the unknown as they sit on a timed bomb for another disaster. Though they are fully aware of the health disaster that comes with open defecation along the river banks, with the loss of toilet facilities to the floods, and the destruction of their only borehole, they drink the contaminated river water with no help in sight.
The spillage of the Akosombo dam and Bagre dam destroyed anything on its way, and that drew all attention to the Mepe, Battor, and affected communities within the North and South Tongu districts, and even Krachi West, which is next door, with their counterparts in Krachi East, including Tokuroano-Agbasa, forgotten.
The people are left to their own fate, reeling in poverty and destitution post-the Akosombo floods. From whence cometh their help?
