A Seventy-Year-Old woman, a three-month old baby and over a hundred others have been rendered homeless at Tsuimaame, a suburb of Odorkor.
The victims, who occupy a 26-room compound house, became homeless following a court ruling which resulted in a change of ownership of the land on which the compound house was built.
Following the ruling, an eviction notice was pasted on the walls of the compound two weeks ago, but the occupants of the rooms refused to pack out because their rents were not due.
O Friday June 21, the new landlord, with the help of personnel of the Ghana Police Service, forcibly evicted the tenants and threw out their belongings.
Speaking in an interview with the the DAILY HERITAGE, one of the victims, Esi Koko narrated that they were awake as usual around 5:30am when the entire household was besieged by armed police officers and some of the area boys.
She said the police yelled at every tenant in house to assemble in the middle of the house and ordered the area boys to throw out the belongings of the tenants.
The police officers refused to identify themselves or the station they came from.
She said there was an eviction notice, but the notice did not indicate when they had to pack out.
Some of the residents disclosed to the paper that they came to meet an empty site which was given out to them by the then landlord to build their structures on and live there until they recovered the estimated cost of putting up the structures.
She indicated that she had occupied the structure she put up by herself for some years now and per her occupancy agreement with the previous landlord, the rent would expire in the next two years.
The stranded evictees were seen seeking refuge from colleagues from nearby houses.
Meanwhile, one Nii Kodjo Korley who said he was the new landlord disclosed to the paper that he had not treated the residents unjustly as the one they referred to as landlord was not the legal owner of the said land on which the evictees were occupying.
He disclosed that many years ago, his grandfather loaned the land to a friend, a herbalist, who put up a mud house on the land and pleaded with his grandfather to allow him live there as he builds his own house.
According to Mr Korley, his grandfather later took his father to meet the man to make him aware that he was the legal owner of the land as he was an only son to his grandfather.
He added that despite giving the land to the herbalist, the legal documentation was given to his father by his grandfather, and there was no problem about ownership of the land until 10 years ago when they took the matter to court.
He added that the court trial lasted for years until there was a ruling in favor of them two years ago.
”We have done nothing wrong to these evictees; it is simply a court ruling we are acting on.” He added.
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