Sad scene as 7 Drowned Lawra SHS students buried
Last Saturday, June 14, 2025, a tragedy occurred at Lawra Senior High School when seven members of the school cadet corps perished in the River Dikpe.
As of 3 p.m. last Sunday, six of the seven bodies—two boys and five girls—had been returned to their families for burial after being recovered from the river and taken to the Lawra Municipal Assembly morgue for preservation.
Last Saturday, five of the bodies were recovered, and on Sunday, the last two.
The incident occurred last Saturday morning when the canoe on which the students were crossing to the other side capsized midstream.
Three of the students managed to swim to the bank of the river but the rest who were unable to swim, got swept away by the undercurrent.
The deceased were part of the school cadet corps who were on their early morning routine, jogging.
Confirming the incident to the Daily Graphic, the Upper West Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Razak Abdul Korah, said the GES would come out with a detailed report on it later.
He said as at 2 p.m. yesterday, the Regional GES had visited two of the deceased families in the Daffiama Bussie Issa District “and we are currently on our way to Nadowli to visit one other family.”
As at the time of filing this report all seven deceased students had been buried and Mr Korah said the GES was visiting affected families to commiserate with them and share in their grief.
Explaining how the incident happened, the Upper West Regional National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) Coordinator, Abdul Latif Osman, said the cadet corps was on their usual routine jogging last Saturday morning.
He said it was an annual ritual of the cadet corps to cross the river to the other side as part of their training.
However, he said that where they usually crossed used to be shallow and they could cross on foot to the other side.
He claimed that on this memorable day, the squad attempted to cross by canoe using a different path.
He clarified that they chose to accompany a Burkinabè who was crossing in a canoe after they observed them when they arrived at the river’s bank.
Five of the fifteen pupils chose to wait for them, while ten joined the canoe.
According to Mr. Osman, the seven were drowned when the canoe overturned when they were crossing to the opposite side.
He added that while the other seven kids were carried away by the undercurrent, three of them—two girls and one boy—were able to swim to the shore.
The regional NADMO coordinator explained that the incident occurred around 8 a.m. last Saturday and when those who survived informed the community, there was a need to perform some rituals before the search team could enter the river.
He said the team began the search around 10 a.m. and within one hour, five bodies had been retrieved.
After a fruitless search for the other two, the search party had to abandon the exercise but continued on Sunday morning and retrieved the remaining bodies
