A team of three journalists who went to the Breman-Adomanya forest area in the Wassa Amenfi West District in Ghana to document mining-related environmental damage in the area have been assaulted with their digital tools seized and destroyed.
A 261-acre stretch of land has been overrun by illegal miners, predominantly by Chinese and Ghanaians. Their activities have left a trail of destruction, ravaging cocoa and rubber farms and contaminating the River Tano with mining waste.
As the journalists, Akwasi Agyei Annim Accra-based Citi FM/TVs’ Western Regional Correspondent, Nana Fynn of Angel FM/TV and a third from Rok FM, began filming the destruction, a security guard stationed at the site alerted the miners, prompting a swift and aggressive response.
Although a four-member police escort was present, the miners, reportedly persisted in their assault.
“I passed my camera to a police officer only for the thugs to pounce on him, trying to wrestle the camera from him, and as I took my phone to capture the tussle, they pounced on me too,” Annim narrated to Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in a telephone conversation. He said one of the assailants used his pickup truck to block the road to prevent the journalists from leaving the area, detaining them for about three hours until the police called for reinforcement.
Before releasing them, the miners demanded that all recorded footage be erased. It wasn’t until additional police reinforcements arrived that the journalists were finally allowed to leave, under the condition that the videos be deleted at the Asankrangwa District Police Station. Upon reaching the station, law enforcement officers arrested Yaw Kurankyi, identified as the lead assailant, and took statements from the journalists regarding their ordeal.
This is the third time in four months that journalists covering illegal mining have been attacked. On December 20, 2024, Ohemeng Tawiah of the Multimedia Group was subjected to horrific assault by illegal miners in the Offin Shelter Belt Forest Reserve in the Ashanti region. He was following up on an earlier story he published on illegal mining in the area about Clean Jobs Resources Limited.
On October 20, 2024, armed security men of Edelmetallum Resources Limited, a mining company near Manso Nkran in the Ashanti region, attacked a three-man crew of journalists reporting on the destruction of the environment from the companiy’s mining activities. The crew, made up of reporter Erastus Asare Donkor, drone pilot Majid Alidu, and camera technician Edward Suantah, was beaten, and their equipment, including their drone, was seized.
Meanwhile, the award-winning environmental journalist Erastus Asare Donkor recently revealed that he was forced to flee the country in December 2024, following intense threats. He told myjoyonline.com, a platform of the Multimedia Group, that the threats followed his reporting on the activities of the Edelmetallum Resources Limited.
“The threats were real and they became so intense that, in the run-up to the December 7 elections, some of my friends in the security services advised me to leave the country. So I didn’t vote in the last elections. I was outside the country,” Erastus also told the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA.)
These incidents highlight the growing audacity of illegal mining operators and the urgent need for stronger enforcement to protect both the environment and those reporting on its destruction. Impunity over past attacks on journalists is encouraging the perpetrators. The MFWA therefore urge the police to fully investigate the latest attack on Akwasi Agyei Annim and ensure that justice is done.