The Ghana Immigration Service has apprehended 2,241 undocumented street children and their guardians on the streets of Accra.
According to the Immigration Service, the operation is to address growing concerns over child streetism, illegal residency, and national security threats in the capital, Accra.
Reports suggest the operation occurred in the early hours of Friday, May 16 and was focused on Kaneshie, Abossey Okai, and Kwame Nkrumah Circle.
The street children and their guardians many suspected to be foreign nationals, were rounded up and escorted into immigration vehicles by uniformed officers.
According to the Immigration Service, the operation is aimed at decongesting urban centres and enhancing public safety.
They also seek to repatriate individuals residing in the country illegally, particularly those suspected of being trafficked or part of organized begging networks.
Dr Ernestina Tetteh, Convener of the Coalition for Street-Connected Children Organisation (CSCCO), recently raised concerns about the worsening state of child streetism in Ghana.
She stated, “Statistics are hard to come by; we only know that the numbers are growing by the day. They usually come from Chad, Niger. This has been with us since I was a child, what we used to call ‘salaka’. But the issue has become worse than before”.
Meanwhile, many Ghanaians have expressed support for the initiative, describing it as timely and necessary given the visible rise in child streetism.
Watch the video below:
Ghana immigration officers carry out raids in Kaneshie, Abossey Okai, and Kwame Nkrumah Circle to identify and repatriate foreign nationals, mainly street beggars and child vendors, living illegally in the country.#UTVGhana pic.twitter.com/EIzSma4c84
— UTV Ghana (@utvghana) May 16, 2025
The Ghana Immigration Service has carried out a major operation, rounding up beggars at the Abossey Okai Roundabout, in a bid to tackle the surge of illegal immigrant beggars in the city.
[🎥: ningocarboo/Tiktok] pic.twitter.com/p8ENt8pr3X
— SIKAOFFICIAL🦍 (@SIKAOFFICIAL1) May 16, 2025
Ghana Immigration Service arrests 2,241 undocumented foreign nationals involved in street begging in intelligence-led dawn swoop on Friday, May 16#JoyNews pic.twitter.com/FLB1AayhdL
— Joy 99.7 FM (@Joy997FM) May 16, 2025
