But for the intervention of the Akuapem South District Chief Executive (DCE) and his health emergency management team, four men who had sneaked into Apantem, a farming community near Aburi in the Eastern Region would have been lynched by residents.

The four fled Accra following the partial lockdown of most parts of the region.

Their arrival in the community, however, caused agitations as residents feared being infected by the Coronavirus.

The residents attacked the men but stopped when the DCE arrived at the scene.

“We were on our usual routine to go and educate the villagers on COVID-19 and upon arrival, we were told that these gentlemen had actually sneaked into the village. If we had not gotten there, it would have ended up in a lynch because the residents were quite angry. So what we did was to try and calm them down and later on, we had to ask the people to leave because we couldn’t guarantee their safety,” the DCE, Frank Aidoo said.

Mr Aidoo who said he gave the four men money to return to Accra mentioned that they were not the first people to enter the district after government announced the lockdown.

“We came out with certain modalities and what we wanted to do was to make sure that some of these things are curbed. We had a lot of people coming from Accra when Accra was shut down. So among the things that we told people was that when somebody comes from anywhere, what the person should do is to self-isolate. Once the person does that, we feel that is okay. So at the moment, what we are doing is to educate them,” he explained.