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Some herdsmen in the Asante Akyem North District of the Ashanti Region, are fleeing the area following heightened tensions caused by the shooting of four security personnel.

One of the cattle owners who spoke to Citi News, said security personnel were shooting ruthlessly at their cattle and stealing the meat.

Four security personnel including three military officers and a police officer, who had been deployed to the area to evict the herdsmen, were shot by an unknown assailant following renewed government efforts to address the long-standing conflict between the nomadic herdsmen and local farmers. 

The cattle owner said the security personnel have consistently targeted their cattle in their operations, adding that the situation is forcing herdsmen out of the area.

“Some security personnel came into Agogo Township around December 23, they took to the bush and started shooting at the cattle, killed them and carried them away. Even today, they still do it. Fulani herdsmen are now fleeing the township. Some are currently hiding. Anytime they go, they shoot the cattle. They have KIA trucks following them and whenever they kill the cattle they carry it away. I think they share it among themselves.”

Meanwhile, a former DCE for Asante Akyem North, Paul Kingsley Avero, has warned that the long-standing feud between crop and cattle farmers in Agogo will not end until a clear road-map is drawn and adhered to.

He said measures adopted by the current administration to ensure sanity may not yield the needed results because similar attempts in the past failed.

“We should be prepared to solve it once and for all…. If the decision is to take them off, there must be a road-map. You give them the information; tell them when you want them to leave, tell them you are prepared to escort them and never to return.”

Mr. Avero decried the decision to shoot and kill the cattle noting that “the animals are innocent.”