The Central Region of Ghana cumulatively recorded the highest number of violent incidents in 2023 under FOSDA’s quarterly media monitoring of violent incidents. The region recorded a total of 94 incidents (averagely 1 in every 4 days) in 2023. This represents 20.8% of the total 453 incidents recorded in the year. The region also led the violent incidents chart on 3 occasion i.e quarter 1, quarter 2 and quarter 4.
FOSDA recorded a total of 82 incidents in the 1st quarter, 143 in the 2nd quarter, 122 in the 3rd and 106 in the 4th quarter.
Results from the 4th quarter monitoring ending December 2023 show that Violent Incidents decreased from 122 in the 3rd quarter of 2023 to 106 in the 4th quarter. This is a difference of 16 incidents representing a decrease of 13% in FOSDA’s 2023 4th quarter monitoring.
In the 4th quarter, the highest count of violent incidents was recorded in the Central region with 19 cases representing 17.9% of total incidents. Ashanti Region follows closely with 18 incidents representing 17%, and followed by Greater Accra Region with 17 incidents accounting for 16%. Eastern Region follows with 13 incidents representing 12.3%. The Oti Region recorded 8 incidents representing 7.5% whiles the Upper East Region followed with 7 incidents representing 6.6%. North East recorded 5 incidents accounting for 4.7%. Three regions including Western, Bono and Upper West Regions recorded 4 incidents each representing 3.8% for each. Savannah recorded 2 representing 1.9%. Five regions including Northern, Western North, Volta, Bono East and Ahafo also recorded 1 incident each representing 0.9% for each. In this quarter all the 16 regions recorded a violent incident
The data shows that out of the 7 categories of violence being monitored only four (4) categories actually recorded cases in this 4th quarter, they including Physical Violence 58 cases, representing 54%; Gun-related violence 40 representing 37.7%; Social violence 6 cases representing 5.7% and Sexual violence 2 cases representing 1.9%. The remaining categories did not record any incident. Gun violence also saw an increase from 30 incidents recorded in the 3rd quarter to 40 in the 4th quarter.
In terms of lethality, One-Hundred and six (106) injuries and 69 deaths were recorded with the Northern Zone emerging as the most lethal region of the 3 zones in Ghana. It recorded 4 casualties for each incident compared to 2 casualties for each incident in the Middle and Coastal zones. The month of October recorded the highest number of violent incidents with 44 violent incidents out of the total of 106 violent incidents recorded from October to December 2023.
The data in this report emanates from the open-source monitoring exercise of 10 major media outlets in Ghana, covering both online and newspaper sources by FOSDA.
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Download related reports here:
1st Quarter: https://fosda.org/2023/05/04/central-region-tops-violent-incidents-chart-for-jan-march-2023/
3rd Quarter: https://fosda.org/2023/11/01/violent-incidents-decrease-by-15-in-third-quarter-of-2023/