- Samuel Abayateye, a father of two, tasked with monitoring a Ghana-flagged tuna-fishing vessel, was reported missing on Oct. 30, 2023.
- Two years on, his family still hasn’t receive any formal updates from the Ghanaian police or any other agency about what happened to Abayateye.
- The authorities haven’t shared the results of a DNA test on a body found a few weeks after Abayateye went missing, which the family believe was his.
- Mongabay made repeated attempts to contact the police, but didn’t receive a response about the case.
Two years after Samuel Abayateye went missing from a fishing boat he was tasked with monitoring, Ghanaian authorities are no closer to announcing what happened to him. They also still haven’t shared with his family the results of a DNA test from a body that washed up near the family home shortly after his disappearance.
Abayateye’s family, along with Ghanaian NGO the Fisheries Alliance and other international organizations, have repeatedly asked the Ghanaian government for answers about Abayateye’s fate, to no avail.
Mongabay reached out to the Ghanaian police for details about the case but didn’t receive a response.
Abayateye, a father of two, was assigned to the Marine 707, a Ghana-flagged pole-and-line tuna-fishing vessel owned and operated by World Marine Company Ltd. The company, based in the fishing port of Tema, reported Abayateye missing from the boat on Oct. 30, 2023.
A body missing its head, forearms and feet, which the family said closely resembled Abayateye, washed ashore close to the coastal settlement of Anyamam around six weeks later, according to Yohane Abayateye, a brother of the missing observer. The family hails from Anyamam. This led the police to open an investigation.
A week after the body was found, the police asked Abayateye’s mother to provide a DNA sample to confirm the identity of the corpse, which she did. But the family’s attempts to get the DNA test results from the Ghana Police Service have proven futile, Yohane told Mongabay in an interview.
With the help of the Fisheries Alliance, Abayateye’s family arranged a meeting with Ghana’s fisheries minister, Emelia Arthur, earlier this year.
A letter signed by Yohane and delivered to the minister at the time said the family had still not received any formal written update or results from the DNA test or autopsy. In the letter, the family also expressed its displeasure about the fisheries ministry and the Fisheries Commission showing no interest in following up on the case with the Ghana Police Service.
Under fisheries ministry rules, every industrial fishing vessel in Ghanaian waters must carry an independent observer who monitors its activities at sea. These observers track where the vessels operate, the type of fishing gear they use, and what they catch, ensuring compliance with government regulations. Life on board is inherently risky — long days and nights at sea and exposure to the elements take their toll. Yet the greater danger often comes from within: as the state’s eyes and ears, observers can face hostility from captains and crew. Harassment is common, and in some cases observers have died under suspicious and difficult-to-verify circumstances.
According to the family, Fisheries Minister Arthur received the letter and thanked them for their patience. She assured them she would work with the interior minister to ensure justice is done.
Since then, however, the family has no idea if Abayateye is missing or dead. They insist the body they found was his.
The lack of communication from the authorities has added to the family’s pain and confusion. In December 2024, a member of the police force indicated to them verbally that the decapitated body they found in 2023 wasn’t Samuel’s, according to Yohane.
Kyei Kwadwo Yamoah, the convener for the Fisheries Alliance, who helped arrange the meeting with the fisheries minister, said that in the past year the family has submitted petitions and letters to the inspector general of police, the former fisheries minister, the former executive director of the Fisheries Commission, and many other officials. But their pleas haven’t resulted in any concrete actions.
To get justice for Abayateye, all entities must come forward and describe the actions and protocols that they followed, said Elizabeth Mitchell-Rachin, a board member of the Association for Professional Observers (APO), a U.S.-based nonprofit.
She noted that it’s been over a year since police took the DNA sample from Abayateye’s mother.
“The police told the family that the South African company that processed the DNA evidence said the body that washed ashore was not Samuel’s. The police need to report on exactly how they handled that DNA from the body and from Samuel’s mother,” Mitchell-Rachin told Mongabay.
She said the authorities should also name the South African company and provide the family with the technical report from the tests. She raised the possibility that, given the delay in processing the samples, the DNA evidence might be contaminated or unusable.
Mitchell-Rachin also questioned why the Ghanaian police refused to share the autopsy report with the family. “They should have been able to tell the source of the mutilations of the body that washed ashore, believed to be that of Samuel. They should have known this within the first week of December 2023.”
Banner image: Missing fisheries observer Samuel Abayateye. Image courtesy of the Abayateye family.
No answers for Ghanaian fishery observer’s family months after suspected death
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