The Police in the Volta Region has begun investigations into the death of 6 persons who drowned after their boat capsized on the Volta Lake on Tuesday.

According to an eyewitness report, the incident occurred when a canoe that had 10 people on board was hit by a storm. It is reported that out of fear, all the victims gathered to one side of the canoe causing it to capsize.

Initially, it was reported that 4 persons had drowned in the Volta Lake at Kpandu, with 6 survivors.

However, the Volta Police PRO, Prince Dogbatse revealed that the incident claimed 6 lives; 4 ladies and 2 young men, leaving 4 survivors.

According to him, the attention of the police was drawn to the incident by a group of fishermen who happened to be at the scene.

Mr Dogbatse indicated that the group of men managed to rescue some of the victims.   

“We heard the information regarding the incident from some fisher folks who happened to chance on the development. So they had attempted to rescue the victims but unfortunately, that didn’t materialize of which some persons in the canoe died.

Speaking to Joy News, a woman who lost two of her grandchildren indicated that the children were on their way to an okro farm to harvest and sell some of the okro in order to raise money when the incident happened.

One of her grandchildren, who was identified as Evelyn Gadagoe was a final year student SHS student who was apparently raising money to finish her course at Kadjebi-Asato SHS.

Narrating the unfortunate incident, she said, “the children have been working on farms for money. One of such works took them to an overbank community.

"Water entered the canoe, most of them panicked so they moved to one side of the canoe causing it to capsize. Three of my children left home and only one returned so I lost two of my grandchildren in the accident that occurred on Tuesday," she stated.    

Meanwhile, Prince Dogbatse stated that a group of police officials have been deployed to probe further into the death of the victims.

“Currently they have all been identified by the relatives and we are going on with our investigation and hopeful we will conduct postmortem on the bodies and then we will see the way forward.”