Blood shed

Well this definitely won't be my fondest blog-post, but it is a reality here in Ghana, so I thought to best portray life as it actually unfolds here.

If you have do have a weak stomach though, just skip this blog---

I arrived to work on Monday with my 2 roommates to a horrific scene.

There was a terrible car accident at the intersection where our office is located in Osu, so the tro-tro (similar to SA's 'taxi's') dropping us off, had to stop at that intersection b/c they couldn't even get by. There was a huge crowd of people, the police, a tow truck and the vehicle's involved were in such bad shape-- I was sure there were no survivors.

Then I found out what happened...

Early Monday morning, 4 robbers targeted a 21-year-old female student from the University of Ghana located here in Accra (near where I live in East Legon) and snatched her purse at 5am when she was getting out of a hired taxi. The 'good samaritan taxi driver' who witnessed the innocent student being robbed from his taxi chased the 4 robbers, who then robbed another taxi driver at gun-point in order for him to give up his taxi to them.
Obviously, he obliged and the chase was on.

The good samaritan taxi driver was shouting out his window at passersby, that the vehicle ahead of him was in fact stolen and robbers were driving it.

Apparently here in Ghana, there is this unwritten code that Ghanaians will do anything and everything to take the law/fate into their own hands to punish menaces of their society-- which I was unaware of?

So the taxi that the robbers were driving, collided with an innocent man's car on his way to work (if he is still alive, he must have sustained some serious, life-threatening injuries). This obviously stopped the robbers from this crazy pursuit, and when they went to run out of the vehicle, a mob of Ghanaian's from the community where I work in Osu, grabbed 3 of them (the 4th one successfully got away with her purse b/c he was wielding a gun, sending off gun shots to warn the Ghanaian mob surrounding him, that he would kill them if they dared pursuing him) and started lynching them.

They killed the 3 robbers by stripping them naked first to shame them, then using stones and machete's to beat them to death and lighting them afire with gas-filled tires afterward.

The blood from 1 of the deceased remains stained on the pavement by work (we haven't had rain in this hot, hot humidity).

My roommates and I were passing by the scene around 9am when police were working tirelessly to disperse the crowd so they could begin their investigation.

When I asked my boss if the police will go after those who lynched the 3, he said to me absurdly, "How can you ask that? Would you want them to approach you to rob you? If they hadn't been killed this morning, they would have simply continued robbing and killing innocent people. It is best they are dead".

I just gulped and walked away bewildered.

Yes, it is wonderful Ghanaian's are so protective of humanity and willing to punish wrongdoer's, but to what extent?

Anyway, I am still reeling from the whole incident as it is front page news here on the Daily Graphic newspaper- photo's included.

And for those wondering, no--- this is not one of my crazy, doxycycline-induced (malaria prophylaxis) dreams! This actually happened on Monday and the tragedy of it all still haunts me as I type this.