More than 300 residents from Dadwene and Anwona in the Ashanti Region, as well as Hwidiem, Kenyase, Goaso, and Marhani in the Ahafo Region, have been remanded into prison custody for two weeks following an alleged attack on officials of the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and journalists.
The suspects were arrested during a joint military-police operation conducted at dawn on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, in the Ashanti and Ahafo regions, with an additional swoop at Ehi in the Volta Region.
Videos circulating on social media captured the arrested individuals—mostly men—lined up on the streets and forced to perform physical exercises, many appearing distressed and unaware of the charges levelled against them.
Residents have alleged that security forces targeted the wrong Dadwene community, claiming the operation was meant for Dadwene along the Obuasi-Dunkwa road—where illegal miners reportedly attacked an EPA team—rather than the Dadwene community on the Kumasi-Obuasi stretch.
According to a Joynews report, the suspects were transported to Kumasi and arraigned before a court, which remanded all of them into prison custody for two weeks. They are scheduled to reappear in court on Thursday, November 27, 2025.
Emotional scenes unfolded outside the Kumasi Central Prisons as families and relatives queued in hopes of visiting their loved ones and securing bail.
Some residents accused security officers of ignoring evidence of innocence during the arrests.
“My husband even showed them his ID card that he works as an electrician for AGA, but the police didn’t heed and sent him away. They ransacked our room. They didn’t explain to us what wrong my husband had done,” Kukuaa Amissah, wife of one of the arrested residents, told the media.
The mass arrests have drawn sharp criticism from residents and some Members of Parliament, including Tano North MP Gideon Boako, who described the operation as indiscriminate and insisted that many innocent people were detained.
They have called for the immediate release of those wrongly arrested and urged the military to adopt more targeted and precise operations in future.