Ahuman rights organisation, Livelihood and Environment Ghana (LEG), has initiated a legal case against Shaanxi Mining (Ghana) Limited for abandoning a worker, Godfred Nongbezina Nabil, whose arm was amputated after he got hurt while working for the company.
Nabil is one of several people in the Upper East region who have suffered casualties associated with the company, with the heaviest catastrophe recorded when 16 people died from a midnight explosion in its mine in January, 2019.
The Talensi Traditional Council, currently headed by Tongraan Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang, is hardly heard condemning these casualties or asking any probing questions regarding the adherence of the Chinese mining companies in the district to safety regulations or protocols.
The traditional council is scarcely heard expressing worry about the recurring accidents linked to the companies’ operations. And it is hardly seen standing in solidarity with the compensation-deserving victims of those accidents and their families.
The Tongraan, whose actions are widely seen to serve the Chinese companies’ interests, has an unbeaten reputation for initiating court cases against people in the region at will. And when his subjects speak against him, he summons them to his palace at the speed of a bullet.
He has so far spent what local observers call a decade of ‘Silence, Summons and Suits’ on that royal skin since Wednesday, 29 April 2015.
The human rights organisation told Media Without Borders it took the decision to pursue legal proceedings after writing twice to Shaanxi, now called Earl International Group (Ghana) Gold Limited, on the need to provide the young man with a prosthesis (an artificial arm) as promised.
“All the efforts we’ve made so far to dialogue with the company concerning Godfred’s welfare have proved futile.
“We wrote a letter and wrote a reminder but the company did not reply to the proposed dialogue and did not show any concern. That is why we are now going to court on the matter on Godfred’s behalf,” said the organisation’s executive director, Richard Adjei-Poku.
How the young man lost his arm
Nabil said he was carrying out an instruction on Wednesday, 17 May 2023, when his arm got trapped in one of the company’s mining machines.
He bled profusely as the arm remained stuck in the machine from the elbow joint until some mechanics heard his cry and, after racing to the scene, disassembled the machine to extricate him from it.
Then, he was sent to Ultima Platz Hospital, a private facility in the Bolgatanga East District’s capital, Zuarungu.
About 24 hours later, he was ambulanced from that hospital to the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) in the Northern region. Doctors amputated the affected arm at the TTH in May, 2023.
“I was asked to go and do maintenance. That day, there wasn’t anyone around there. When I got there, the rolling belt (a mining conveyor belt) was having a fault. There were a lot of stones inside the belt. I was trying to remove the stones inside the belt. I was aware that when it happens like that, you have to wash it (the belt) with water. But there wasn’t [any] water around.
“The water that was underground there, I was managing with that water to wash the belt. Later, I turned to pick something. When I turned and was trying to move to the other side, I don’t know what happened, my hand got inside the belt. I was lying there. I was there [for] almost thirty minutes,” he told the author of this report in July, 2023.
Two nurses hit and ditched by Shaanxi
In an earlier instance, two young nurses, Thomas Agombire and Gloria Atimbila, were knocked down and run over by a speeding Shaanxi-owned Toyota Land Cruiser with registration number WX 8888- 18 on Wednesday, 21 August 2019, in the region.
The crash occurred on the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom Road as the two nurses were returning home from work on one motorbike.
The crash affected Agombire’s right leg, resulting in doctors amputating the whole leg to save his life. Atimbila, who sat behind Agombire on the bike, was severely injured in the right eye and right hand. She underwent a series of surgeries financed with a loan she personally secured from a bank.
The two nurses have not been compensated by the company to this day. Agombire currently uses crutches and an artificial leg to aid his movement to his workplace. He purchased the artificial leg (now losing its quality) with help from the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA).
The families (children and wives) of the 16 people who were killed by the Shaanxi explosion in 2019 are still isolated in grief and without compensation.
One of the company’s employees named Victor Abisiyine Ayine went missing on Monday, 10 July 2023. His body was found the following day in the company’s pool of wastewater after his younger brother, Jonathan, and some other relations, appeared unannounced at the company’s site and demanded his whereabouts.
An accident claimed another life when Eric Frimpong was setting up some rocks underground for blasting on Friday, 17 November 2023. He was killed in the blast.
In December, 2023, another worker, Kwesi Boalbil, suddenly collapsed on duty at the company’s mine. He died shortly after he was taken to hospital.
On Thursday, 10 April 2025, a Mujah Fahad, died after a skip, a robust bucket used in transporting ore to the surface of a mine shaft, fell on him, smashing his ribcage. The young man was a son to one of the company’s security guards, Namtibil.
Sources say the number of Talensi people killed so far since the arrival of the Chinese company in 2008 is close to eighty.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
