A number of students have been injured following a clash among final-year students of the Fumbisi Senior High School (SHS) in the Builsa South District last Wednesday night.
Information gathered by the Daily Graphic suggested that the issues bordered on ethnicity, with school authorities and security officials working to prevent reprisal attacks.
Sources said last Tuesday, a house prefect questioned some three final-year students — said to come from one area — for beating a first-year student from another area.
For questioning their alleged unruly behaviour, the three students pounced on their house prefect, who is of the same extraction as the first-year student, and subjected him to beatings.
The incident quickly went viral in the school, which angered the final-year students who hailed from the ethnic extraction of the house prefect and the first-year student.
Sensing danger, the authorities of the school sent the three students to the police station for their safety after intelligence suggested that there was likely to be reprisal attacks by students of other ethnic extraction.
Last Wednesday, the school’s Disciplinary Committee met over the issue and took a decision to suspend the three students.
However, by the time the letters were ready on the day, it was too late for the affected students to be asked to go home.
The management then decided to wait to hand over their suspension letters to them the following day.
When the final-year students realised that the three students were still in the school, they went on a rampage around 10 p.m., attacking one another till Thursday morning.
The female students, who feared for their lives, went into hiding in the dormitories in order not to be caught in the brawl.
In the process, a number of students got injured, while two others sustained broken legs.
The Chief Executive of the Builsa South District Assembly, Daniel Kwame Gariba, said in an interview that the development in the school necessitated an emergency District Security Committee (DISEC) meeting to take a decision on the matter.
He noted that at the end of the deliberations, it came to light that the issue in the school was among the final-year students.
He said, “DISEC resolved that all male final-year students be sent home temporarily to ensure law and order in the school”.
On the students with broken legs, he said the affected students had been rushed to a bone specialist in Zuarungu in the Bolgatanga East District for treatment.
He added that other students who suffered injuries had been treated and discharged by the Fumbisi Clinic.
