Lawra: The search team has recovered the remaining two bodies of the students of Lawra Senior High School (SHS), who got drowned in the Black Volta River near Dikpe community in the Lawra Municipality. This brings the total number of victims to seven, comprising four females and three males.
According to Ghana News Agency, Mr. Abdul Latif Osman, the Upper West Regional Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), confirmed the recovery of the bodies. Reports indicated that the remaining two lifeless bodies were found in the Dewo River, about 2km from the Dikpe River where the accident occurred.
Mr. Osman told the GNA that the bodies of all seven deceased students had been deposited at the Lawra Municipal Hospital mortuary for preservation. He said the Police would release the bodies to their families after all legal requirements had been met.
The seven deceased final year students were part of ten members of the Lawra SHS cadet who were involved in a canoe accident on the Black Volta River near Dikpe in the Lawra Municipality in the early hours of Saturday, June 14, 2025. Three of them, a male and two females, as well as the canoe operator, swam ashore while the remaining seven drowned.
A search party was launched yesterday and five out of the seven bodies were retrieved from the river, confirmed dead and the bodies deposited at the Lawra Municipal Hospital mortuary for preservation. Reports indicated the incident happened between 0700 Hours and 0800 Hours when about 15 members of the school cadet undertook their usual jogging to the Black Volta River to cross to the Burkina Faso side of the river as part of their training.
Upon reaching the river site, they spotted a young man of Burkinabe descent with a canoe on the Burkina Faso side of the river, so they called him to transport them across the river. Ten students out of the 15 boarded the canoe, with the operator making eleven people onboard, though the canoe was designed to carry fewer than ten people. Along the journey, the canoe capsized, causing all eleven people onboard to fall into the river.
The incident was immediately reported to the Dikpe community elders for intervention. The reports indicated that the community elders arrived at the scene and had to perform some rituals before they could search for those missing in the water. The search, therefore, started between 1000 Hours and 1100 Hours and within an hour, the five bodies were recovered.
A similar incident occurred in 2008 when a student of the Lawra SHS drowned in the Black Volta River when members of the Geography Club of the school went on an excursion to the river.