NAIMOS UNLEASHES TWO-DAY ENFORCEMENT ACTION AGAINST ILLEGAL MINING ACTIVITIES ACROSS BIBIANI-ANHWIASO-BEKWAI MUNICIPALITY

#GalamseyUpdate

Merewa-Awaso, Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai Municipal District, Western North Region | 28 – 29 May 2026

The National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) has executed a sustained two-day enforcement campaign deep within the forests of the Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai Municipal District in the Western North Region, destroying in excess of thirty-five changfan machines, and dismantling of seven water pumping machines. The operations also resulted in apprehending two illegal miners at the heart of an active mining enclave, and confronting an ecological catastrophe in which the operators have diverted and poisoned both the Ankobra and the Tano Rivers and reduced the forest of Merewa-Awaso to a maze of unfenced pits and abandoned excavations.

The campaign, conducted on Thursday, 28 May and Friday, 29 May 2026, was directed at the entrenched illegal mining activities within the Merewa-Awaso community, where lawful mining concessions have been openly invaded and an organised galamsey enterprise has been allowed to take root in the surrounding forest. What the taskforce encountered over the two days was not the residue of casual prospecting but the cumulative imprint of a sustained industrial assault on two of the country's most important river systems and on a forest belt of considerable ecological value.

The NAIMOS campaign opened at 1010 hours on Thursday, 28 May 2026, with a surgical strike at the active illegal mining site within the Merewa-Awaso area. The taskforce arrived to find a fully operational galamsey enclave deeply embedded within the invaded concessions, with changfan machines deployed in numbers, makeshift structures supporting the illegal activities, and visible evidence of the deliberate diversion of both the Ankobra and the Tano Rivers to serve the unlawful extraction. The two rivers had been so severely contaminated by the continuous discharge of mining wastewater that their natural colour had been displaced and their fitness for any productive community use had been compromised. The surrounding forest floor was equally disfigured by deep valleys, ditches, and pits, many of them filled with stagnant water and presenting an immediate and lethal hazard to any resident, child, or livestock that might stray into the area unawares.

The illegal miners bolted from the site at the speed of jet on sighting the taskforce, but a determined pursuit by operatives produced the apprehension of two of their number after a fierce chase through the surrounding bush. The two suspects in custody have been identified as Emmanuel Atassor, aged 23 years and Alhassan Mumuni, aged 24 years. Both have since been handed over to the Sefwi Bekwai District Police Headquarters for further investigation and possible prosecution. In a comprehensive sweep of the site, the taskforce destroyed in excess of twenty changfan machines and set ablaze every makeshift structure recovered at the location.

On Friday, 29 May 2026, the campaign was extended deeper into the broader forest of Merewa-Awaso, with the taskforce penetrating areas of the bush not previously accessed in the first day's engagement. It quickly emerged that the operators had organised a network of sentries along the principal access routes to the site, evidently posted to provide early warning of any approach by enforcement personnel. The sentries appear to have performed their function, with the operators hurriedly abandoning the active mining points ahead of the taskforce's arrival, leaving behind only their equipment and the visible imprint of their devastation. No arrests were effected on the second day.

The condition of the forest within the deeper enclave was, however, severe in the extreme. The continued assault on the Ankobra River along this stretch was particularly alarming, with the watercourse barely recognisable along sections of its passage through the affected area, and the surrounding land stripped, gouged, and abandoned to the elements over a vast operational footprint. The taskforce destroyed fifteen further changfan machines, dismantled seven water pumping machines deployed across the area, and burnt the makeshift structures and ancillary mining accoutrement recovered at the site, in a decisive intervention to arrest the continuing destruction.

The cumulative picture that emerges from the two days at Merewa-Awaso is one that demands the urgent attention of every Ghanaian who depends on the Ankobra or the Tano for water, fishing, farming, or for the simple ecological stability of the regions through which these rivers traverse. The deliberate diversions of two major river systems within a single forest enclave, the wholesale degradation of the surrounding land, and the calculated deployment of sentry networks to shield the unlawful activities from enforcement together describe an enterprise that has since shed any pretence of artisanal mining and assumed the character of an organised industrial criminal venture.

NAIMOS wishes to assure the residents of Merewa-Awaso, Bibiani, Anhwiaso, Bekwai, and every other community along the Ankobra and Tano corridors that the taskforce will return, and again, until the rivers run clean, the forest is left to recover. The taskforces would also sustain the operations to ensure that the recklessly abandoned pits are no longer death traps for the children of the area, and every Galamseyer and financier of the trade understands that the forests of the Western North are not, and will never be, sanctuaries for the destruction of the Ghanaian environment.