A 10-year-old boy is on the verge of losing his fingers after being inflicted with cutlass wounds at Mempeasem, a community in the Assin Fosu Municipality, Central region.
The victim (name withheld) was accused of stealing scraps belonging to a prominent businessman in the area named Nana Danso, who is a royal family affiliate.
In an interview with Angel News, the underaged boy narrated that some men had arrested and handed him to the suspect for the alleged theft.
After taking the child, Nana Danso threatened to cut off the boy’s hand as punishment for the crime.
The poor boy said, “he [Nana Danso] pinned my hand to a cement block, pulled out a cutlass and lifted it in an attempt to cut off my hand”.
Out of fear and panic, he instinctively grabbed the blade of the cutlass to save his hand from being severed, but in the end, the child suffered cuts on three fingers.
“He yanked the cutlass from my hand and that resulted in the cut,” he told Kwame Owusu Asante Shadrack in Twi.
According to the reporter, the affected fingers appear to deteriorate amid the child’s reported throbbing pains.
The victim also disclosed that before the struggle, Nana Danso had put him on the ground and stamped his foot on his chest several times.
When asked about his living condition, the boy said he was forced into the menial scrap job out of poverty to sustain himself. “Sometimes I eat out of the benevolence of individuals,” he added.
According to him, his mother had passed. His father has also been unavailable; the child has never caught a glimpse of him.
The stepmother of the victim, 23-year-old Emmanuella Addo, indicated that the incident occurred two weeks before the filing of the story.
However, the family has neither sent the child to the hospital nor has reported the matter to the police for appropriate action due to financial constraints. The grandmother who takes care of the boy is unemployed, she said.
She, therefore, solicits public support and justice for the innocent boy because he strives to sustain his life.
Meanwhile, Nana Danso has admitted to committing the offence.
He said he was ready to bear the cost of his medical care and other consumables, though he did not intend to cause any affliction to the boy.
