The Gonja Traditional Council says it is outraged over the gruesome murder of a 90-year-old woman in the Savannah Region town of Kafaba.

The Council has in a statement condemned what it describes as a “barbaric act of violence which has perpetrated on the blind side of the Traditional Authority”.

The Overlord of the Gonja Kingdom, Yagbonwura Tuntumba Bore Essa, is hence pleading with his “people and the general public to assist the kingdom and the security agencies to identify the culprits and bring them to book”.

According to him, sanctioning the culprits will serve as a deterrent to others to desist from engaging in such “deviant behaviors”.

The 90-year-old woman named Akua Denteh was reportedly killed after she was tagged a witch by a self-acclaimed soothsayer.

Footages making rounds online since Thursday, July 23, capture a group of women hitting and beating the elderly woman while other members of the community looked on unconcerned.

Even though many people have called for the immediate arrest of the culprits, the police in the region appear tight-lipped on the matter.

Growing campaign for justice

Many Ghanaians have been denouncing the act.

Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, the running mate to the National Democratic Congress’ flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, in a statement, stressed that “the elderly in our society rather deserve our love and protection, not this level of unspeakable cruelty”.

She has also tasked the security agencies to fasten their probe into the matter.

A statement from the Women’s Ministries of the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Sunday has joined the campaign for justice.

“The branding of elderly women as witches and the lynching of one by other women reflects the deep-seated cultural misconceptions about elderly women in the society”, parts of the statement read.