It is the dream of every parent to see his or her child go through the educational ladder and grow into a responsible and successful individual in life.
However, this dream is not always realised as tragic events sometimes cut short the lives of such promising students, making the investments of the parents a waste.
There's been a phenomenon of some senior high school students losing their lives prematurely through physical attack, including stabbing.
GhanaWeb takes a look at incidents involving six senior high school students who have been stabbed to death for various reasons in the last six years.
Leading the chart is the late Edward Borketey Sackey, a final-year student from O'Reilly Senior High School in Accra who is the latest to be stabbed to death.
On Monday, September 2, 2024, news broke of the stabbing to death of the 18-year-old boy by a colleague on campus and pronounced dead on arrival at the LEKMA Hospital.
The victim, a General Arts student, was reportedly engaged in an argument with a schoolmate over whose father was wealthier.
This happened after they had finished writing an exam.
This degenerated into fisticuffs, and Edward Borketey Sackey was stabbed multiple times, leading to his death.
On June 2, 2023, news emerged involving a Form 2 female student of Akyem Nsutam Senior High School in the Eastern region who was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend, who is a barber, for cheating on him.
Eighteen (18)-year-old Abigail Asare of General Arts 1 class reportedly visited her boyfriend at his barbershop in Nsutem township on Thursday, June 1, 2023, hours after the school asked the students to go on break.
However, misunderstanding ensued between her and the boyfriend, identified as Michael Osei, when he accused her of cheating on him.
The suspect is alleged to have stabbed her multiple times to death in the barbering saloon in the evening, locked the victim, who was bleeding profusely, and runaway into hiding.
The lifeless body of the deceased in a pool of blood was later found in the barbershop saloon.
Police were informed, and the saloon was broken into for crime scene inventories, after which the body was taken to the morgue pending further investigation.
On August 9, 2022, another final-year student of Tweneboah Kodua Senior High School at Manso Odaho in the Ashanti Region was also stabbed to death.
The 16-year-old student, who also operated a motorcycle business at Odaho in the Amansie West District during vacation, was killed by unknown assailants.
He was reported to have been stabbed in the lower abdomen and chest and clubbed by the attackers, and three suspects have been arrested in connection with the death.
According to a police report, the attackers lured the victim into a bush and killed him.
That was not the first time Tweneboah Koduah SHS was experiencing the stabbing of a student. In 2016, a 20-year-old final-year Visual Arts student of the SHS stabbed a colleague.
The incident, according to police, happened when a confrontation ensued between the suspect and his colleague, who was later rushed to the Agogo Presbyterian Hospital.
On September 7, 2021, another final-year student of the Oppong Memorial Senior High School (SHS) at Kokofu, in the Ashanti Region, was also stabbed to death over an iPhone.
Richard Appiah allegedly sneaked out of the boarding house in the company of other students to town.
He was stabbed in the lower abdomen by unidentified youth of the town during a confrontation over an iPhone at about 9:45 pm.
Master Appiah was pronounced dead upon arrival at the Alhamadiya Moslem Hospital at Kokofu.
Police proceeded to the Alhamadiya Moslem Hospital, only to see the lifeless body of the deceased with stab wounds lying on the floor.
encounter with some youth in the town sometime back. Meanwhile, that case was not reported to police," he said.
On September 27, 2018, staff and students of the Effiduase Senior High School in the Sekyere East District of the Ashanti Region were left in a state of shock after a student was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant.
18-year-old Derrick Adjei Emmanuel was found lying in a pool of blood by one of his mates.
According to police, the deceased was attacked while returning to the school around 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday.
“So per the investigations by the students, it was also revealed that, yesterday [Wednesday], there are about three students who escaped to town and met the assailants who demanded money and their mobile phones from them. Two of the students managed to give their phones to them, but the deceased was resisting, so the others ran and left him behind.”
The Effiduase Divisional Police Commander, ACP Philip I. K. Asante, told the media.
Earlier in March 2018, a similar incident occurred at the Osei Kyeretwie Senior High School, also in the Ashanti Region.
There was uneasy calm at the school when a student reportedly died after some unknown assailants stabbed him.
The deceased, identified as 19-year-old Godfred Arthur, was stabbed in the neck.
Reports said the assailants invaded the school at about 10:00 p.m. and attacked the students.
The motive of the attack was not known.
KA
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