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The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), has arrested 62 foreigners for entering the country illegally though unapproved routes in separate operations, in the Upper West and Western Regions.

According to the GIS, 28 nationals of Burkina Faso, who entered the country through unapproved routes at Hamile in the Upper West, were arrested.

However, 34 foreigners, mostly Ivorians, who were apprehended for entering the country through Half Assini, in the Western Region, were repatriated to their country.

Upper East Regional Regional Public Relations Officer for the GIS, Immigration Control Officer (ICO) Ibn Yussif Duranah Abdul-Mumin Seidu, said the migrants were arrested at an unapproved route around the main Ghana-Burkina border at Hamile in a passenger bus with registration number GN 2220-10.

ICO Seidu said preliminary investigation revealed that the illegal migrants were travelling to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region for various economic activities.

“The migrants have since been handed over to authorities in Burkina Faso after a thorough screening was conducted at the Hamile border by health personnel at post,” he stated.

ICO Seidu cautioned residents living along the border to avoid aiding foreigners to enter the country illegally, saying the service would deal with such persons if caught.

He said GIS would step up patrols and monitoring of the country’s borders, to ensure that the President’s directive on the closure of the borders was strictly enforced.

The GIS said the 34 foreigners, were apprehended at the Anomatoape Inland Immigration Checkpoint of the Half Assini Sector Command, entered the country illegally with the intention of taking part in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

A statement issued by the Head of Public Affairs of GIS, Superintendent Michael Amoako-Attain, in Accra, said, “Although the call for proof of identity of travelers by the Immigration officer may be inappropriate, the circumstances at the time necessitated it, and it was done in the interest of national security”.

“Apparently, the immigrants had been refused by the people of Newtown to register there because they claim they were not indigenes of the place and thus were on their way to Half Assini,” the GIS said.

“The GIS wishes to assure the public that it remains vigilant at the frontiers of the country and will endeavor to exhibit healthy doses of professionalism in the course of managing migration in the country and contributing to national security”, it said.

Ghana closed its sea, land and air borders on March 22, 2020, as part of efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.