HUNDREDS FLEE BAWKU ...As situation remains tense (LEAD STORY)

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bawku

HUNDREDS of residents are fleeing the conflict zone in Bawku and heading for neighbouring communities in Burkina Faso and Togo following sporadic gunshots in the municipality on Monday night.
An immigration officer at the Kulungugu Border Post who asked not to be named told the Daily Graphic that majority of those fleeing were women and children, adding that they were mainly of the Moshie ethnic group.
The source said those fleeing claimed that they had relatives in those countries and hoped to live there until the situation in Bawku improved.
He said people in Kulungugu were currently living in fear and could no longer go about their normal duties freely.
“My brother, people living in Kulungugu rely on Bawku for everything, be it foodstuffs, hospital or banking services, and given the intensity of fighting, we are afraid to go out there. With the month coming to an end, some of us are worried whether we can go to Bawku for our salaries from the banks,” he said.
“In fact some of us are living in fear because we live in rented apartments in town, and with the new tactics adopted by the feuding factions, we are virtually living in fear as we do not know when and who next those involve in the fighting would attack,” the Immigration officer said.
Last Saturday, one Zackaria Abagre, a Mamprusi man, was allegedly stoned to death at Buabula, near Sabongeri, a Kusasi community, after he had gone out in search of his missing horse.
This led to the massacre of about a dozen people in a retaliatory attack.
In the latest development, seven persons including five children who sustained various degrees of injury have been transferred to the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital. And a man, identified as Issaka Hasmin, 24, a Moshie, was gunned down at a suburb called Zemaasa.
On Monday, amidst heavy rains there were sporadic gunshots all over the Bawku township, and, according to a source, the shooting was so intense that people in far away Kulungungu could hear the shots, which triggered the mass fleeing of residents.
It would be recalled that in May this year when there was resurgence in the fighting in Bawku, some people fled to Goulongousi, a town in Togo, to seek refuge. Those who fled, after their houses and shops had been burnt, were mainly Mamprusis from Pusiga.
Although some of them were said to have returned others are still seeking refuge in that town.