Passing soldier saves gay man from mob in Ghana

A gay man has been saved from a mob attack by a soldier who happened be passing by in the Ghanaian capital of Accra.

According to the Pulse local news site, the soldier noticed the crowd beating the man in Kawukudi park, in the city’s residential Nima area.

It appears that the victim was lured by a “friend” to the park under the pretence of watching a football game.

His attackers had in fact plotted to beat him after they found “evidence” that he is gay.

“[The victim] allegedly claimed he had been born as a homosexual and therefore cannot control the urge of his sexual orientation, words which angered the angry crowd even more as they jumped on him and handed him severe beatings,” reported Pulse.

Mob attacks against members of the LGBT community are not new in Ghana, including claims that a vigilante youth group has targeted lesbians and gays in Accra.

In April, police arrested a gay man in the town of Nkawkaw, in the south of the country, after a crowd threatened to lynch him when his would-be lover turned him in to the local community.

Ghanaian music event promoter Kinto Rothmans was not so lucky after he was brutally beaten in February by a mob – also in Nima – over accusations that he had sex or attempted to have sex with another man.

In May last year, it was reported that a group of youths killed a man they accused of being gay in Accra.

Gay sex is illegal in Ghana and carries a sentence of three years imprisonment.