Water siege traps hundreds in Afienya

A deluge that swept through the Afienya township in Greater Accra over Sunday night has left hundreds of residents marooned inside their dwellings, unable to venture outdoors as surging waters transformed streets and alleyways into impassable channels.

The scale of the inundation has drawn comparisons to meteorological catastrophes of nearly two decades past. According to Habib Awudu Mohammed, the recently departed Assembly Member for the Afienya Electoral Area, the last time the community witnessed such a comprehensive drowning of its streets was a decade and a half ago.

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The devastation blankets not just the Afienya town centre but extends across peripheral settlements — the TOR Estate, Jerusalem quarter, the perimeter of Sanford Clinic, and the Ablekuma neighbourhood all lie beneath standing water that shows no sign of receding.

“The situation here is not easy; people are trapped in their rooms, they cannot move, they cannot do anything,” Mohammed described the predicament to journalists, his words capturing the desperation of a population cut off from normal activity.

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Rescue operations have already commenced, with personnel from the National Disaster Management Organisation and firefighters from the Ghana National Fire Service having mobilised into the flooded precincts. The arrival of emergency crews has provided some measure of hope to those waiting for deliverance from their water-locked homes.

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“Luckily, we got in touch with the NADMO rescue team, some of them are here, the Fire Service are here in their numbers and we are doing our best to see how best we can rescue the people,” Mohammed noted.

Beyond the immediate humanitarian crisis, the flooding has created secondary chaos along transportation corridors. The principal thoroughfare connecting Afienya to neighbouring Tema has become gridlocked as vehicles pile up behind obstacles created by floodwaters, leaving commuters stranded for hours as they attempt to navigate around submerged sections.

Yaw Opoku Amoako

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