A male adult was injured and many others left with bruises when gunmen suspected to be robbers on motorbikes on Sunday evening opened fire on traders at a busy market in Tatale in the Northern region.
The attackers fled hauling away millions of cedis but four were ambushed and killed at Nayili in a joint operation by alarmed police and angry residents.
Eight of the suspected robbers however managed to escape the counter attack, and the deceased have been sent to the Zabzugu police station to be forwarded for the morgue.
Meanwhile, the male adult shot just below his stomach earlier, has been referred to the Tamale Teaching Hospital after initial admission at the Yendi Municipal Hospital.
According to an immigration source, the twelve armed men stormed the market and fired sporadically before targeting a local Forex Bureau and Mobile Money operators.
The officer believed the robbers launched the attack in response to a new security strategy which made it impossible for robbery attack on business people on the deplorable ECOWAS road.
“You know today is Sunday and usually traders go to Lome from here so traders who are coming from Kumasi and Tamale normally converge here to take car from here to Lome. So those people they normally come her to change money because of the black market: they would come and change to change their cedi into Cfar and take the buses from here to Togo.
“This thing it has been happening not today but usually what happens is that they normally rob the villagers here midway to the border, but this time it’s not like that. Because of the robbery incident, they were occurring very frequently and we decided that police man would normally escort them from here to the Togo side so they would takeover. So I’m sure because of the escort they didn’t attack the traders today but attacked the people exchanging the money and started warning shots, people were running helter – skelter,” he said.
He noted the robbers then walked up to shop owners separately and boldly asked monies and mobile phones be handed over.
They brandished their weapons honking on their motorbikes speeding away with the booty while people flooded the roadside watching the daylight robbery before they were ambushed by locals and security personnel.
Tatale is a district capital in Northern Ghana less than 3km with the border with Togo where robbery incidents on traders doing business in Ghana and Togo are common due poor road and delicate security.
