SECURITY FOR BAWKU WASSCE CANDIDATES (PAGE 3)

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bawku

Final-year senior high school students engaged in this year’s West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), as well as their invigilators and supervisors, in the Bawku municipality are to be provided adequate security protection to enable them to complete their examination.
The May/June 2008 WASSCE started on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 and will end on Wednesday, May 28, 2008.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Ofosu-Mensah Gyeabour, said in view of the 22-hour curfew imposed on the town following renewed fighting in the area, the candidates and their supervisors would be escorted to and from their examination centres to enable them to write their papers.
The government extended the 12 midnight to 4.00 a.m. curfew imposed on Bawku and its surrounding townships to 9.00 a.m. to 7.00 a.m. because of renewed fighting in the town last Sunday.
By that latest development, the people of Bawku and neighbouring towns have only two hours of freedom.
The Regional Police Commander maintained that the official death toll in the recent conflict was four, including one person who was beheaded, adding that 10 houses were burnt at Pusiga, while two trucks were also burnt on the Bawku- Garu Road
According to DCOP Gyeabour, presently the situation in Bawku was somewhat calm, but he was quick to add that more security personnel were being deployed in the town to avert further clashes in the area.
He disclosed that some vital installations, such as the Bawku Presbyterian Hospital, had been placed under heavy security guard.
Meanwhile, seven patients on admission at the hospital at the time of the renewed fighting in Bawku have been, on the recommendation of the medical authorities, transferred to the Regional Hospital in Bolgatanga.
The Regional Police Commander added that in the early hours of Monday when the fighting erupted, some armed persons attempted to attack one of the police barracks but the police quickly mobilised and quelled the attack.