Serbia’s Honorary Consul to Ghana, Steve Mawuenyega, has been found dead in a room in a house near the American Embassy in Accra.
He was 63 years old.
Until his death, Mr Mawuenyega was also a member of the General Assembly of the Honorary Consular Corps of Ghana and was also in charge of relations between Serbia and the Government of Ghana.
Police report
The Public Relations Officer at the Accra Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mrs Effia Tenge, confirmed the incident to the Daily Graphic.
She said the late Mawuenyega’s daughter reported the death of her father to the Cantonments Police at about 1 a.m. yesterday.
The daughter, whose name has been withheld, told the police that she had been trying to reach her father on the phone for the past three days without success.
According to Mrs Tenge, the daughter went to the house at about 12:20 a.m. yesterday and knocked on the father’s door a number of times without response.
With the help of a caretaker in the house, the daughter peeped through a window and saw her father lying motionless in a supine position in his room.
The police were contacted and after the body had been examined, it was moved to the Police Hospital morgue, Mrs Tenge said.
Family source
A source close to the family has expressed shock at the death of Mr Mawuenyega since there was no indication that he had been taken ill.
“The family is in a state of shock right now as his death is a big blow. The family would await the results of the autopsy,” the source told the Daily Graphic.
The source said at about 1 a.m., Mr Mawuenyega’s daughter placed a distress call to the family and they quickly contacted the police and the ambulance service. Unfortunately, the source said, when the police went over to the address, they found the Consul dead.
Initial examination was done after which the remains were conveyed to the Police Hospital morgue where an autopsy is expected to be undertaken later this week.
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Brief profile
The late Mr Mawuenyega was a businessman and the Executive Chairman of Contrast Incorporated.
In 2019, the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, Mr Ivica Dacic, on a visit to Ghana, proposed Mr Mawuenyega for appointment as the honorary consul of Serbia in Accra, a role which was subsequently approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.
A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul’s own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the people of the two countries.
They are usually people of repute and business magnates who have reached within the political and business environment of the resident country.