Exclusive information available to ABC News Ghana suggests a rather worrying situation for several Africans, Ghanaians inclusive, who are emigrating for greener pastures.

ABC News Ghana can confirm revealing details of how body parts of scores of African emigrants, mostly Nigerians, are sold on the black market for between US$119,000 and US$262,000.

The criminal act, ABC News Ghana can confirm, is perpetrated by a syndicate luring victims under the pretext of securing travel documents and employment in the Middle East. The victims are then murdered, upon arrival at their destinations, and their body parts, sold on the black market.

Some of these body parts are sold for as much as US$262,000.

The syndicate usually focuses on harvesting human organs such as kidneys, hearts and livers. Kidneys on the black market currently go for about US$ 260,000 while human hearts are sold for nearly US$120,000. Livers on the other hand go for the price of US$ 157,000.

The country worst affected by this rather disturbing trend is Nigeria, as per an International Organization for Migration (IOM) report dated April 7, 2019.

The growing phenomenon may be attributed to, among others, the high levels of unemployment in some of these African countries. Nigeria has been put on high alert over the rather disturbing situation with other countries such as Ghana, also urged to take pragmatic steps to curb the menace in view of recent incidents of travel and recruitment agencies luring Ghanaians into the Middle East with the promise of securing jobs upon arrival.

It is yet to be known the exact measures the Government of Ghana intends putting in place to protect the citizenry despite strong word from multiple sources to ABC News Ghana that the issue has been taken up seriously by the relevant agencies.