Keta (V/R), June 3, GNA - Victims of a rainstorm disaster at Abutiakope, a fishing community, has appealed to the Keta District Assembly to help them to come out of their present predicament. The victims numbering about 2,000, in addition to their wives and children have been living under serious deprivations when outboard canoes in which their fishing gear were packed and anchored close to the coast were destroyed in the storm which hit the area in April, this year.

Some of the fishermen, who were sleeping in their canoes when the storm raged, managed to escape death narrowly by swimming ashore, but sustained various degrees of injuries and were later treated at the Keta Government Hospital.

According to the Spokeswoman of the victims, Madam Esther Amable, the rainstorm swept along the coastland of Keta at night destroying eight outboard canoes, fishing nets and outboard motors estimated at more than 300 million cedis.

She noted: "The disaster has rendered the whole community jobless making victims to survive on the benevolence of friends and sympathisers."

In a letter addressed to the District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr Edward Ahiabor and copied to the Department of Fisheries and the Chief Fisherman, the victims urged him to see their predicament as being the result of a natural disaster and should, therefore, go to their assistance.