A Bridge Too Far
By: Fr. Joseph Panabang, SVD
Rev. Fr. Joseph Panabang, SVD St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Kintampo Brong Afaho Region Ghana, West Africa.
Savagery
Connecting Northern Ghana to the South is the famous Buipe Bridge over the Black Volta River that flows into Akasombo Dam, the world’s longest man-made lake. At the height of last year’s tribal war, mainly between the Gonja and Konkomba tribes, the bridge became a monument to the worst of human savagery. People both children and adults were mercilessly killed and thrown like dead rats into the river. Pregnant women were sliced like cakes and their fetuses forked out and hurled into the river. Infants, if they were male were plucked from the back of innocent nursing mothers and flung into the swirling river; thousands drowned. Whole villages were burned. Finally the government announced that the fight between Konkombas and Gonjas was over, that peace in the North was restored.