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BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaGhana child bride under police protection after marriage to priestPublished5 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Kpone TVImage caption, The 12-year-old bride is seen here after arriving at the wedding reception, flanked by her young bridesmaidsBy Favour NunooBBC News, AccraA 12-year-old girl has been placed under police protection in Ghana after it emerged she had been married to a 63-year-old traditional high priest.There was public outrage after footage of Saturday’s customary wedding was shared on social media.The office of the influential priest, who serves an indigenous community in the capital, defended the marriage, saying it was only ceremonial.The legal minimum age to get married in Ghana is 18.The prevalence of child marriage has declined in recent years, but it continues to happen. BBC Africa Live: Updates from the continentPolice say they have identified and tracked down the girl and she is now under their protection, along with her mother.Contact had been made with the government’s children’s minister and the social welfare department to ensure the 12-year-old gets the necessary support while investigations continue, their statement added.The story is huge news here – and the move by the police has elicited some praise, though others are questioning why there have been no arrests.The priest in question, Nuumo Borketey Laweh Tsuru XXXIII, is a much-respected member of a community that lives in the Nungua area of the capital, Accra.As a spiritual leader, the priest – known as a “Gborbu Wulomo” – performs sacrifices on behalf of the community, prays for their protection, enforces cultural practices and leads traditional rites during events such as the installation of traditional chiefs.Videos and photos of the elaborate wedding show it was attended by dozens of community members and in the footage women are heard telling the girl to dress teasingly for her husband.They also advise her to be prepared for wifely duties and to use the perfumes they gifted her to boost her sexual appeal to her husband.Community leaders say such duties would not be expected for another six years, when she would be 18.However, civil society groups continue to condemn the marriage.”The perceived acceptance of child marriages and the open brazen approval or defence of the practice by influential leaders of the community have the potential to embolden certain deviant behaviours like paedophilia,” the Paediatric Association of Ghana has said in a statement.According to the UN ‘s children’s agency (Unicef), the West African nation has two million unions in which the wife was a child bride at the time of the marriage.More than nine out of 10 married girls are not attending school, it adds.Another recent study showed one in five young Ghanaian women aged between 20 and 24 years were married before the age of 18.The members of the community in Nungua are part of the Ga people, who live along the south-eastern coast of Ghana.In Ga culture, the selection of chiefs, high priests and wives of the high priest is believed to be a spiritual process.Specific families are responsible for nominating someone for these roles to serve the gods.In this case, the 12-year-old comes from one of the families who by tradition must provide a bride for the high priest.For the family, it is an honour – though in most cases the chosen candidates for these roles are adults.More from Ghana:The 100-year-old imam who went to churchGhana’s LGBT terror: ‘We live in fear of snitches’How Ghana’s central bank lost $5bn in one yearRelated TopicsChild marriageGhanaWomen’s rights in AfricaAround the BBCFocus on Africa podcastsAfrica Daily podcastsTop StoriesLive. 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[ad_1] As a spiritual leader, the priest – known as a “Gborbu Wulomo” – performs sacrifices on behalf of the community, prays for their protection, enforces cultural practices and leads…
![BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaIsrael-Gaza war: Gazan girl begs rescuers to save brother first as entire family killedPublished1 day agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsIsrael-Gaza warThis video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Media caption, ‘I wish for death’ – 12-year-old orphan in GazaBy Orla GuerinSenior International Correspondent, JerusalemIn video recorded by a Palestinian rescuer, a shout comes from under mounds of smashed concrete.”I’m Alma.” “Don’t help me first. Help my mum and dad. And please help my brother Tarazan. He’s a baby, 18 months old.”It’s morning on 2 December 2023, and 12-year old Alma Jaroor has been buried under the rubble of a five-storey building in downtown Gaza City for over three hours. “I want to see my brothers and sister,” she shouts. “I have missed them.”But the rescuer reaches Alma first, and she clambers out – unaided – from between jagged slabs of concrete and twisted metal bars. She is coated in dust but has no major injuries. They ask where her family is. She points to the rubble on her right and left.Warning: This article contains details some readers may find disturbingThree months on, Alma tells the BBC her story, at length and in detail. Her uncle Sami sits nearby. She is sheltering with him and his family in a tent in Rafah, in southern Gaza. Her words are a torrent of horror and loss.”I remember waking up under the rubble. I checked my iPad, and saw it was 09:00. I hoped my brother Tarazan would still be alive. I was calling out to him, and holding on to hope that one of them would be alive. “I could smell the blood. It was dripping on to me. I was screaming for anyone to rescue us. I was hearing others calling out as well.” But after Alma was rescued, she saw Tarazan’s remains. Image source, Family handoutImage caption, Alma (L) and Tarazan, her 18-month-old brother”I lifted the blanket that was covering him. I found him in an unimaginable state,” she says, “his head severed.” At this she falls silent, haunted by what she cannot unsee.”I wish for death after seeing my brother like that,” she says. “He was only 18 months old. What has he done in this war?” Tarazan was not her only loss. Her entire family was gone, killed side by side – her parents Mohammed, 35, and Naeema, 38; brothers Ghanem, 14, and Kinan, 6; and sister Reehab, 11. Alma’s parents had tried hard to outrun Israel’s bombardment and keep their children safe. She tells us the first area the family fled to was bombed, and the second. And in the third place, the bomb landed on them.Relatives say the building where they were sleeping was brought down by an Israeli air strike. The Israeli army told us it could not comment on this claim without co-ordinates for the building. Image source, Family handoutImage caption, Alma (R) with her sister Reehab (C) and brother Ghanem (L)”We were happy together as a family,” Alma says. “We used to hug each other when we were scared. I wish I could hold them all. I didn’t have enough time with them.”And she is still waiting to bury them. Only Tarazan’s body was recovered.”There were 140 refugees [Gazans displaced by the war] in the building, and only some of the bodies have been found,” she says. “My family’s bodies are decomposing under the rubble. I long to see them and give them a proper burial.”At times, Alma can forget – just for a moment – all she has lost.She sits on the cold floor of the tent with her young cousins. They are fashioning a kite from scraps of plastic and imagination. Alma joins in, chatting and smiling. She no longer cries all the time, she says, because she knows that her parents are “happy in heaven”.She has found comfort with her uncle Sami’s family, but not safety. Image caption, Alma now lives with her uncle Sami and her cousinsLike every child in Gaza, she could be killed at any minute. Especially vulnerable are those in Rafah, where Israel continues to threaten a ground assault. It is home to 1.4 million Palestinians.The war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October, which killed around 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians.Since then, the children of Gaza have paid a terrible price.The United Nations children’s agency, Unicef, says 13,000 children in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the war began, a rate of killing it describes as “staggering”. Health ministry officials in the Hamas-run territory say that the overall death toll in the war is at least 31,923 people. The World Health Organization regards their figures as “credible” and says the real figures could be even higher.Israel says it does all it can to minimise civilian casualties. Palestinians counter that many bombs have been dropped on residential buildings teeming with the displaced, killing families like Alma’s.Her relatives share a photo with us. It shows Alma smiling broadly, surrounded by a group of six young cousins. All are now dead, except for her. They were killed in the 2 December attack, along with her immediate family.Image source, Family handoutImage caption, Alma, standing in the centre, with the cousins that were also killed in the reported air strikeAnd how many Almas are there now, robbed of their mothers and fathers? The war has created at least 20,000 orphans as of the end of February, according to preliminary information gathered by researchers from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. It is an independent non-governmental organisation supported by the EU which works on the ground in Gaza.The real number may be higher, according to the centre, but that can’t be confirmed because of the difficulty and danger of accessing information in Gaza.On a patch of dirt, between rows of tents, Alma plays hopscotch with her uncle Sami’s children, leaping from square to square. She looks happy and relaxed. It’s another moment of forgetting.Before the war took everything, she liked to sing, and was hoping to become a doctor – as her father wanted her to. “I had dreams that I wanted to achieve,” Alma says, “but now I have no more dreams. I feel pain in my heart and it will stay with me for the rest of my life, because they were my family, my parents, my sister and brothers. And they were all gone, in one night.”All Alma wants is to escape from Gaza and reach her grandmother, who lives abroad. “I want to go to her, and hug her, and feel safe,” she says.Additional reporting by Wietske Burema, Goktay Koraltan and Haneen AbdeenRelated TopicsIsrael & the PalestiniansIsrael-Gaza warGazaMore on this story’He will come back’ – Israeli hostage families cling to hope, and demand a dealPublished6 days agoGaza widows and orphans struggle with loss in makeshift campPublished5 MarchGaza children search for food to keep families alivePublished26 FebruaryTop StoriesLive. 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