What the hell? Warning for Travelers in Ghana

EDIT: It turns out this news story was not real. In other words, it was a hoax that got the whole country talking. The news that it was a hoax hit over the weekend. Sorry for the panic, folks.

The upside of this:
1. My cynicism was proven wrong. Even the President became involved and ordered a full inquiry. It was heartening to see action taken and the issue taken seriously.
2. That it didn't actually happen. That we can still believe that, while highway robberies are common, they're not as ugly and violent as this was reported to be.

A caution: Robberies along the roads in the northern part of Ghana are common and the same precautions apply as noted in this post below.

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This was the original story for what it's worth Horror: Armed robbers induce mass rape on passenger bus.

As I wrote at the time or posting originally:

The point of introducing this story is to reiterate a message to travelers I've repeated many times before. The safest bet when traveling between Accra and Tamale/Bolga/Wa or any of the three northern regions is to catch the STC--State Transport Company coaches. This is because the STC has an armed guard and robbers are well aware of this and tend to leave them alone.

The road between Kumasi and Kintampo is particularly poor and slow and you should try to avoid having to pass through here in darkness if you're not on the STC coaches. The road between Accra and Kumasi is also poor and you should also avoid that road at night.

In short, simply try to catch the STC for any long distance trip and any trip in which you'll be traveling in the dark. If you have a private vehicle don't stop for anyone. Only stop at police barriers but not at any other temporary road block unless it's clearly road maintenance. If you do see a road block in a location which normally doesn't have one, stop before you get there, turn around and go back.   

Please be careful while traveling in Ghana. It's horrible not to be able to trust people on the road, but do keep your wits about you.

EDIT AGAIN: I received a few odd/threatening emails questioning my motivation for posting this and seeming to make some fairly large assumptions. It seems there is a lot of weird reporting and political stuff going on in the media at the moment. I don't what is underlying all of that. Apparently it's political. I'm not interested in politics.

My motivation was simply others' safety.

This incident, when we thought it was true, was an opportunity to warn people of serious dangers. It would mean I could get across a point about safety without having to some personal and ugly things I've either experienced first-hand or know about first-hand. When this story broke I felt that this story served as a good warning and referring to it would help save others from potentially unsafe situations. The story wasn't true. That is a relief. But the point remains the same.

I choose not to write about the ugly side of life here for the most part; there are enough people doing that already. However, I felt that that story made a strong point about safety that traveler's would do well to heed. This is a blog about travel in Ghana, after all. I do write a guide about travel in Ghana in which we outline dangerous areas in detail too.

The decision to warn people comes from experience, knowing what I know but choose not to make public most of the time. I try to stay positive and really don't want to scare people. But here is some of that experience that I withhold because, for the most part, Ghana is a good and safe country. But it's not completely safe and certain areas and activities seem to be getting worse.

I know of three foreign women who were raped traveling in different parts of Ghana: Paga area, Cape Coast and the Volta Region. I have friends whose friends were also raped somewhere in the Eastern or Central Region I believe. This is over the course of the years 2005-2010 that I've been living in or connected with Ghana. And by that I don't mean they were having a relationship with someone and resisted their advances, but violent attacks during the day or night where they were sleeping or traveling. Sure, some people shouldn't have been walking dark alleys alone at night, but they were. That's why I keep cautioning.

I was accosted and robbed in a taxi in broad daylight between Elmina and Cape Coast on my way to work one day back in 2007. It was a set up. My possessions were rifled from my backpack. Fortunately, I fought back and got all my stuff back, but that seems to be the exception--the thieves didn't have weapons so, I thought, I'll fight back and it worked.

I met a bunch of foreign travelers in Bolga last year who were in a tro that was stopped by armed robbers between Bolga and Paga and had all their possessions stolen.

A Ghanaian friend was set up and robbed, much like I was, in a share taxi between Kintampo and Wa last year.

On one of our trips south, just as we left Bolga proper and headed out of town, and even though it was the STC and mid-morning, a band of youth with machetes stood across the highway blocking our way. The driver put his foot down and sped up. He had every intention of running down anyone who didn't get out of the way. They jumped aside at the last minute.

Another Ghanaian friend was robbed in a trotro somewhere around Tamale and lost all his money and possessions.

I know of people who were robbed traveling in parts of the Western Region too. And then there are the stories in the news about robbers trailing people from Accra to other parts of the country and robbing them somewhere along the way.

Thieves work in bands. One will be present at the tro station and even board the tro himself, checking out the passengers. He will use his phone to alert his colleagues down the road to get ready. You can figure out the rest. A few weeks ago when we were traveling from Tamale to Bolga early in the morning (5 am), I can tell you I was observing every single person anywhere near our tro. There was one guy continuously on his phone and looking around and I was nervous. I even suggested we wait and get the next one. I shifted all my cash out and hid it. Nothing happened. But it's certainly a nerve-wracking experience on public transport these days.

This is what I know about. I wonder how much more I will never hear about.

Although the story that prompted this post turned out to be a hoax, the point of posting it remains the same: to warn people about the dangers of not taking precautions when traveling. It is unsafe traveling on certain modes of transport in certain parts of the country and certain times of the day. I get emails from travelers saying they caught trotros between Kumasi and Bolga and it was OK. Great. I used to too. But I would caution against it.

I guess that those people who emailed me may not regularly travel the breadth of the country, from north to south and back again, or maybe they don't use public transport very often and wouldn't necessarily understand the dangers involved. It's no joy traveling that far wondering if you're going to be robbed or have an accident, I can tell you, but a lot of us have no choice.

I'm not even going to address the other things in some of the emails. I did, however, once have a very annoying boss whose catchphrase often comes to mind when I read some of the comments and emails I receive. She used to say, "When you 'Assume' it makes an 'ass' of 'u' and 'me'." I hate to admit it, but she had a point.

I also like the line: "When you jump to conclusions, you make bad landings." (from The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan).

If this blog is not to your tastes, vote yourself off the island; no one is forcing you to read it.

Please try to keep an open mind when emailing or commenting; it would be much appreciated.