A couple at Breman Brakwa in the Central Region have been arrested by the Asikuma Odobeng Brakwa Police for allegedly burying their two-year-old son alive.
The couple say they were convinced by a fetish priestess that their child who can neither walk nor talk was a spirit child and had to be killed.
Narrating what happened, Abubakar Mohammed, a tenant of the couple said at midnight on Monday, Paul Adoba and Maame Atta and the fetish priestess dug a grave and buried the two-year-old alive.
According to him, he suspected something was not right and so woke up to the surreptitious movement of the people at midnight.
“I saw them carrying the child to where the pit was being dug. It was around 12 midnight. It was awkwardly strange and so, I got up to close my window,” he narrated.
Mr Mohammed said he saw two women and a man. The man, he claims was digging while one woman was carrying a child.
He revealed further, “I was alone and a bit afraid and so I couldn’t step out. It was during that time that the man left the scene and came to the yard in our compound. It was my landlord and so I asked him what on earth he was doing at this time behind the house.”
Abubakar Mohammed said, based on is query, his landlord explained that his child was not well and a fetish priestess said they needed to perform some rituals for the child and that’s what they are doing.
” So, I left them,” he said.
The chief of Breman Brakwa, Nana Kofi Hammed, says, the community is extremely surprised by the act of the couple and the fetish priestess. Even though they have left the two in the hands of the police, some rites ought to be performed.
“The couple and the priestess came to bury the child alive and so those who suspected it reported it to the police. I was here in the evening when the relatives of the couple came that this was what has happened and so they were begging for forgiveness. I said no, it’s a huge crime that ought not to be entertained,” he explained.
He continued, “I said this is never done. Even when day old children die, they are not buried like that, let alone burying a child alive. What’s so grievous is that they buried this child close to the main stream we all depend on.”