April 18, 2025, will forever be remembered with sorrow in Kanjo-Kura. What began as a routine errand for 26-year-old Betue Awura ended in tragedy. The young mother of three was walking with two other women to a distant stream when a tree branch, loosened by a windstorm, fell and struck her.
She sustained critical spinal injuries and, despite her family’s frantic efforts and spending over GH¢45,000 on medical treatment, died days later at the Tamale Teaching Hospital.
Her death casts a stark light on the deadly cost of neglect in rural Ghana, where access to water, roads, and mobile communication remains a luxury many cannot afford.
In Kanjo-Kura, the water crisis is not just a daily challenge—it is a matter of life and death. Women’s footsteps trace the pattern of systemic neglect, their resilience tested daily by the sheer necessity of survival.
Before dawn, women and girls across rural northern Ghana rise with one mission: to find water. In communities where broken boreholes are the norm, this means trekking for hours, sometimes up to seven kilometres, to reach seasonal streams, muddy dams, or shallow dugouts.
By mid-morning, their bodies are already weary. Shoulders ache under the weight of 20-litre containers, and legs strain across uneven paths. But beyond the physical toll lies a deeper fear—the fear that the water may be gone, contaminated, or in rare but tragic cases, fatal. In Kanjo-Kura, a farming community in the Egambo Electoral Area of the Nanumba South District, that fear was realised.
To her grieving brother, Desmond Betue, the cause of her death is painfully clear. “My sister died because of water,” he said. “If we had a functioning water system, she wouldn’t have had to walk that far. She went to fetch water and never came back—killed by a falling branch during a windstorm.”
Locals often refer to Kanjo-Kura as “overseas”—a reference to its extreme isolation. Of the four boreholes in the area, only one still works. The intense pressure on that single source forces many, like Awura, to venture beyond the village for water. The community lacks clean water, decent roads, and mobile network coverage. Residents say they feel forgotten.
Even after the accident, help was slow. With no mobile signal, the family could not call for emergency services.
“We had to rely on a midwife at the CHPS compound to help us find transport,” Desmond explained. “Even if we had network coverage, the roads are so bad that an ambulance couldn’t have reached us in time.”
The Assemblyman for the Egambo Electoral Area, Bilasime Nakiwu Wisdom, acknowledged the state’s failure. “We did all we could to save her, but the system failed us,” he told Graphic Online during a visit to the community. “Water, roads, mobile coverage—these aren’t luxuries. They’re basic needs. But we are being denied. Are we not part of Ghana too?”
The burden falls heaviest on women. Gifty Manajor, a local farmer and mother, described the exhausting daily routine. “We spend hours every day just looking for water,” she said. “Some women return home after dark—how can we take care of our children or farms like this? How long must we live like this?”
Awura’s death underscores Ghana’s lagging progress toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6: access to clean water and sanitation for all by 2030. In Kanjo-Kura, the rising cases of typhoid, diarrhoea, and malaria speak to a public health emergency far from resolved.
The Chief of Kanjo-Kura, Ubor Wajah Kofi, expressed his frustration. “We drink from the same water as animals. Our children are always sick. Is this the life we deserve? We pay taxes. We vote. Is clean water too much to ask?”
Despite repeated appeals, the Wulensi District Assembly has yet to respond meaningfully. Roads remain deplorable, boreholes are broken, and mobile connectivity remains non-existent.
As Kanjo-Kura buries Betue Awura, they mourn not only a mother and sister, but a symbol of systemic neglect. Her death has become more than a personal tragedy—it is a rallying cry. For water. For roads. For communication. For justice.
Kanjo-Kura may be remote, but its grief is a national concern. Development must not be measured by numbers alone, but by human lives—lives like Awura’s.
Repeated attempts by Graphic Online to contact officials at the Nanumba South District Assembly were unsuccessful, raising further questions about the authorities’ commitment to resolving this long-standing crisis.
