No Cemetery, No Road: Watch How Ayiwatta Residents Carried Dead Body To Across Huge River For Burial

A video circulating on social media has drawn attention to the extraordinary burial practice of residents of Ayiwatta in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region, where the absence of a local cemetery forces community members to transport the bodies of their dead across a river to a neighbouring town for interment.

The footage shows a procession of mourners dressed in the traditional red and black of grief, carrying a wrapped body on a wooden bier along a rural path as they make their way toward the river crossing.

The scene, filmed under the midday sun amid thick green vegetation, captures a community performing a solemn duty under conditions that speak to years of infrastructural neglect.

According to those familiar with the practice, the transportation of the deceased across the river has become an established local custom born out of necessity.

Ayiwatta has no designated burial ground, leaving residents with no option but to rely on a neighbouring community to receive and inter their dead.

The video has prompted an outpouring of concern on social media, with many Ghanaians calling on the North Tongu District Assembly and the Volta Regional Coordinating Council to prioritise the provision of a cemetery and improved access infrastructure for the community.

North Tongu District, represented in Parliament, has in recent years been the subject of broader conversations about underdevelopment and the infrastructural gaps facing riverine and rural communities in the Volta Region.

Watch the video HERE.