Constitutional Rights and Policy Strategy Advisor at Democracy Hub, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, has described the situation as a “huge crisis” and raised serious concerns over the national response and media coverage of the conflict.
Speaking on Newsfile on JoyNews, Barker-Vormawor stressed the gravity of the humanitarian toll, regardless of the disputed casualty figures.
“This is a huge crisis, whether we are believing the numbers that it is 31, or 200 as some are speculating,” he said.
“Even the number of people who died apparently on the boat on the White Volta that drowned we have only been able to find six survivors. The number of people who survived, we have not been able to establish that to add up competently to the numbers that is a big problem.”
The advisor called for transparency and clarity in the official figures being released, adding that the lack of reliable data on both the deceased and survivors reflects a deeper issue of neglect and institutional inefficiency.
Beyond the numbers, Barker-Vormawor also questioned the unequal empathy and national attention given to conflicts and disasters in northern Ghana compared to other parts of the country.
“I am also concerned about how we partition our humanity and empathy towards reportage of issues generally. It’s perhaps a long historical thing in terms of how we cover the northern part of the country,” he noted.
“The way in which we create sympathy and empathy around issues that affect certain areas it goes all the way down to even the Nanumba and Kokomba issues in which we were reporting it.”