Alarming! Tema: The Den of Robbers

Months of investigations has revealed that about 85% of people living at the Tema European Market, adjacent the Pioneer Food Cannery at the Tema fishing harbour are suspected hardened armed robbers and criminals.

These people, the paper can report, sleep in kiosks they have put up for themselves at the market and its surrounding areas.

Some of them live with their families and close associates at the market as others also live there with their girlfriends and their criminal gangs.

Some concerned residents in an interview told this reporter that during the day; some of the suspected robbers loiter without doing anything in particular and from further inquest, the paper gathered that the criminals monitor during their walk-about in the day with the intention of identifying targets that they can hit in the night.

Others also hide in their small ‘ghettos’ to smoke Indian hemp (wee) or marijuana and sniff cocaine,” a resident who gave his name as Kwabena Charles told TODAY, adding that the robbers operate in the full glare of the public and even run shifts in their operations.

“Some of them are so daring that they go for their usual operations during the day when people are busy at their work places while others operate at night”, a market attendant told the paper.

“In the case of those who operate in the night, they usually set off at night when vigorous activities such as buying and selling of fish at the European market have come to an end, by which time their victims may be sleeping or resting in their homes,” another resident indicated.

Some other customers who spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity disclosed that the robbers extend their nocturnal activities to other residential areas in Tema and its environs, adding that in some instances their activities go far and wide beyond Tema and its immediate environs.

The cumbersome movements of the robbers, the residents disclosed, often make it difficult for the police to clamp down on them and their activities, a situation which left many of the residents to live in perpetual fear.

“We are living in fears because our lives are in danger”, one of the fish mongers at the European Market lamented.

Another fish seller who spoke to this reporter stated “I don’t feel comfortable here with these people around us; but if I don’t sell the fish to make ends meet my family will suffer. I only pray and hope that I don’t get killed because of these armed robbers.”

In an attempt to find out whether or not the situation has been reported to the police, those who spoke to this reporter, said they were not ready to report the current situation for fear of being exposed by the police thereby endangering their lives.

“This market is located in between two police stations, one is about 50 meters and the other is also less than 100 meters from here; but because we don’t want to be killed with our families we are not able to report,” another worried trader lamented.

Source: TODAY