Five miners met their untimely death last Sunday after an illegal mining (galamsey) pit collapsed on them at Adumbanso Lower Electoral Area, a farming community in the Wassa East District of the Western Region.

The five consist of four females and one male whose name has been given as Samuel Abekah alias Kofi Tawiah aged 18 years.

A report by the Assemblyman for the Adumbanso Lower Electoral Area, Albert Kwasi Kwakye, indicated that the five met their untimely death when the dugout sand caved on them while they were prospecting for gold.

Mr. Kwakye said, he alerted the Police immediately who went to the scene and found the five bodies.

According to him, they were retrieved and deposited at a private mortuary at Funko pending investigations.

The Wassa East District is one of the notable areas for illegal mining business in the Western Region.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Samuel Abeka, father of Kwasi Abekah said his son is a JHS 2 student at the Apewosika Basic School near the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in the Central Region.

According to him, although his son lived with him in Cape Coast, he had to relocate to Adumbanso to stay with his mother due to the closure of schools.

“Even though we are divorced, I take good care of my children and wasn’t aware that my son was into “galamsey” and the mother never told me, so I was surprised when the news about his death in a “galamsey” pit was broken to me”, Mr. Abekah said.

He appealed to the Police to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.