More than 200 Ghanaians are stranded in Cote D’Ivoire, the Assistant Superintendent of Immigration (ASI) Rickey Nana Yaw Boakye, an Officer at the Sampa Command of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) in the Bono Region has said.
They seem to be some of the unsuspecting victims of “Q-Net,” a popular fraudulent online scheme, which allegedly lures and defrauds people of huge sums of money, under the pretext of securing them jobs abroad.
ASI Boakye said the Sampa Command was collaborating with its counterpart in La Cote D’Ivoire to rescue and repatriate the stranded Ghanaian migrants, including women and girls back home.
Last year, the Command, with the support of other security agencies rescued and brought about 200 of the victims back home through the Ghana-Cote D’Ivoire border in the Jaman North District of the region, he stated.
ASI Boakye made this known at a stakeholder meeting, organised by ActionAid Ghana (AAG), an NGO at Abesim, near Sunyani to validate a project it implemented in the region.
The implementation of the three-year Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)-funded multi-country project ended in December 2023.
ASI Boakye said it was disgusting to know about the forms of human rights abuses the victims went through, saying “Now as we speak about 200 of the victims are locked up in a room in Ivory Coast and they are not allowed to go out.”
He said it was difficult to trace the victims because they mostly travelled through unapproved routes along the border communities in the district, with the aid of motor and ‘pragyia’ riders in the area.
ASI Boakye cautioned the youth intending to travel abroad to visit the GIS and endeavour to process all the legal documentation, warning that those who engaged in the illegal services of the ‘Q-Net” exposed themselves to unnecessary dangers and did so at
their own peril too.