The Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Professor Nana Ama Klutse, has recounted a harrowing escape from armed illegal miners (galamsey operators) which ultimately led to a ghastly accident injuring several EPA staff and journalists.
In an interview on TV3 on Thursday, November 6, 2025, Prof. Klutse described how her team, escorted by military and national security personnel, was forced to flee for their lives after being confronted by heavily built men wielding pump-action guns.
According to the CEO, the men, who accompanied the galamsey operators, were wearing vests marked “CID” on the back.
She noted that when the military and national security operatives demanded identification to verify their status as Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers, the men could not produce any IDs, escalating the situation into a confrontation.
“Heavily-built men, wielding weapons, were wearing vests with CID written on the back with guns, pump action,” Prof. Klutse told host Alfred Ocansey.
The incident occurred during a three-week EPA operation targeting suppliers of services to illegal mining activities in water bodies.
She narrated that the team had begun the previous day, Wednesday, November 5, by closing down several shops at Anhwia Nkwanta. On Thursday, while en route to shut down more shops near Obuasi, they spotted active galamsey operations on the ground.
“We decided to have a look at what they were doing. When we stopped and walked into the area, as we were getting closer, they were running away, and all of them had left by the time we got there. So we looked around for what we could pick, and we did pick,” she explained.
She added that an inspection revealed three excavators inside a river body, where mining had blocked the flow, creating tributaries that flooded surrounding areas.
“It is messy. It was really a bad situation,” she said.
Prof. Klutse stated that the team assessed the damage, the operators fled, but word spread quickly, drawing the armed men to the scene.
“We had the military with us, and the national security also were with us, but then we saw that we couldn’t exchange fire or we could not fight them, so we had to run for our lives,” Prof. Klutse narrated.
During the chaotic retreat, speeding along the road, one of the vehicles carrying EPA staff and journalists collided head-on with a truck transporting pipes for galamsey operations.
The accident occurred at Afari, after an initial attack on the EPA convoy by illegal miners at Dadwene, a community near Obuasi. The violence forced the team to retreat, but intelligence from Accra urged them to abandon their planned route and avoid returning via Kumasi to Obuasi.
Instead, they took a longer detour through the Western and Central regions back to Kumasi, where the collision happened just before reaching the city.
The injured suffered various ailments, including a broken thigh for a Joy TV cameraman, chest pains for Media General’s Ashanti Regional Correspondent Ibrahim Abubakar, and a head injury for Adom TV’s correspondent.
Several EPA staff were also hurt, but are all said to be responding to treatment.
“We thank God that we all have our lives now; it is just unfortunate that we have some injuries,” the CEO said.
“We have discussed it with the doctors and nurses in charge to pay special attention to them because we were on a national assignment before this unfortunate incident happened,” she added.