The closure will remain in effect until 6:00 PM on Sunday, December 8, 2024.

In a statement issued by the Interior Minister, Henry Quartey it said the closure is a security measure to safeguard the integrity of Ghana’s December 7 General Elections.

The Ministry calls on all citizens, as well as travelers entering or exiting Ghana, to fully cooperate with State Security Agencies enforcing this directive to ensure a smooth and secure electoral process.

Ghana’s international land, air, and sea borders have been closed to human traffic since March 21, 2020.

On May 31, President Akufo-Addo announced that the border closure will be in effect until further notice.

However, in his 15th update on measures taken against the spread of coronavirus in the country, he stated the time for the opening of the borders is due.

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The President indicated he wants to ensure all necessary measures are put in place.

He noted, “we must the country is in the right position to successfully test every single person who arrives in the country.”

He added the Ministry of Aviation and all other stakeholders are working with the Ministry of Health to provide a sure data in that regard.

In that regard, he said his government conveyed a meeting of the security intelligence agencies from Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo, known as the “Accra Initiative” to strategise on the way forward.

He said the security agencies of the aforementioned countries have since been meeting regularly to share intelligence information to deal decisively with the terrorist infiltration in the Saharian region, Gbcghanaonline.com reports.

President Akufo-Addo said this during a media encounter with senior journalists at the Banquet Hall of the Jubilee House, the Seat of the Presidency, in Accra.

The media encounter, the fourth in the series since assuming office, enabled the President to account for his three-year stewardship to Ghanaians and solicit feedback to improve the various flagship policies and programmes implemented so far.

President Akufo-Addo said government deployed security personnel to the northern and north east parts of the country this year to strengthen the borders so that the terrorist infractions taking place in Burkina Faso do not trickle down here.

The President spoke on issues on the economy, governance, health, education and security, and also explained some of the critical decisions his government took during the period under review.

The media encounter afforded journalists the opportunity to ask the President questions pertaining to the management of the economy.

On education, President Akufo-Addo said government was addressing the infrastructure deficit at the second cycle institutions following the implementation of the Free Senior High School (FSHS) Policy.

Currently, 1.2 million students are benefitting from the FSHS Policy, thus, giving hope to thousands of children who would have stayed home if the policy had not been implemented, he said.

The Kittson County Sheriff’s Department says Mavis Korkor Larnyoh Otuteye was last seen in the northwestern Minnesota region on May 22.

Otuteye was reported missing to police three days later, and her body was found near Noyes, Minnesota — the closest American community to Emerson, Man. — last Friday.

“It is believed that Mavis was attempting to enter Canada at the time of her death,” the sheriff’s department wrote in a statement.

Officials say the woman’s cause of death is “possible hypothermia,” but official autopsy results are still pending. Temperatures in the region dropped as low as 5 degrees Celsius last week.

There has been a spike in asylum seekers since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, with the most recent RCMP figures showing 859 people were stopped between official border points in April.

Emerson has seen an influx in illegal border crossings this year, and many of those asylum seekers come from African countries. In April, 157 people illegally crossed the Canadian border, according to numbers obtained by CTV News earlier in May.

Many people make the journey in an effort to access a legal loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement, a deal between the U.S. and Canada that stipulates that refugees must claim asylum in the first country they enter. If they were to cross at official Canadian border crossings, they would be turned away.

By illegally crossing, asylum seekers hope to access rules that entitle them to a formal hearing in Canada if they are considered refugees.

The border crossings have become so common that the Manitoba government transformed a former seniors’ home in Gretna, Man. into a reception centre for refugee claimants.
Quebec has also seen a surge in the crossings. In March, 664 people were intercepted by RCMP while trying to cross into Quebec. In Manitoba, 170 people were picked up in March, and B.C. reported 71 interceptions.

The crossings have sparked political backlash. In early May, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel and local MP Ted Falk visited Emerson and held a press conference criticizing the federal Liberals of not taking the issue of safety seriously.

Later in the May, a 24-year-old Ghanaian man who lost his fingers to frostbite and nearly froze to death making the crossing was granted refugee status in Canada. The Immigration and Refugee board made the allowance for Seidu Mohammed because, as a bisexual man, he would face persecution in his home country. In Ghana, consensual same-sex relationships are outlawed and can lead to prison time.

Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale has said that the illegal crossings aren’t a “free ticket” into Canada and that asylum seekers face due process, including health checks and security clearance, after they arrive.

The investigation into Otuteye’s was carried out by the Kittson County Sheriff’s Department with assistance from the U.S. Border Patrol. The case is still under investigation.