Mining and other extractive industries are said to be among the most destructive activities, particularly for rural and farming communities. Over the years, communities in the Western, Ashanti, Eastern and Brong Ahafo Regions have been demonstrating against the “mining masters”.

These demonstrations are against what they call the unbridled exploitation of the country’s natural resources, which destroys the environment, pollutes water bodies, violates the rights of citizens; deplete mineral resources and yields only minimal returns to Ghana.

The minerals, metals, rocks, fuel, and timber that industries pursue are very profitable; therefore fighting them out of a community entails hard work, which sometimes yields no results.

The latest to join the war against an extractive company is the community of Abedwum in the Ashanti.

A resident, Afia Oppong says: “Some people are mining stones here. They are destroying our things so the community is up in arms against them”

Carrying her television set, Yaa in an angry tone said “look at what they’ve done to our TV set. We don’t even have a place to sleep when it rains because our roof has been destroyed. Please come and fix our TV and the roof”. 

At the entrance of the Abedwum   town is a conspicuous “BLASTING NOTICE” board by SONITRA. About a hundred meters drive into the town and another “BLASTING NOTICE” meets you.

After reading the notice, I thought to myself, can everyone here read and understand English? Are residents expected to vacate the community between 4 and 5PM?

Ella Oppong tells me the women are in support of the action “The blasting is really affecting us. Children are frightened for no reason. We always have cold because the air has been polluted. Our 4 bedroom house has been destroyed, our TV and even the refrigerator I use for my work has also been destroyed”.

Assistant headteacher, of Adu Asare Junior High School, Johnson Awuku, tells me new cracks in the building are very common.

Ishmeal Carr has been living in Abedwum for the past 17 years. He tells me the community lost its peace when sonitra started its blasting activities. “they may have to stop …” he says 

The community took the demonstration to the blasting site.  When Joy News Exclusive got there workers of Sonitra were busy at work, drilling holes in which dynamite will be placed to blast the rocks.

“They are disturbing our peace in this community. Our water has been polluted and our houses destroyed. They should heed our request and we will stop the demonstration. We’ve asked our wives to bring us food” Sampson says

Joy News Exclusive spoke to the mining engineer at the site Collins Amankwa Antwi, he explained “previously the dynamite hole was 18 meters but we have reduced it to 9 meters …. After consulting with management, we can reduce it to 5 – that is the lowest we can go”.