Ghanaian immigration officials said they had detained more than 2,000 undocumented foreign nationals in Accra on Friday in an operation to dismantle criminal networks and curb street begging.
Of the 2,241 arrested during the early morning raids, 1,332 were children, immigration services said in a statement.
Interior Minister Muntaka Mubarak said in a Facebook post that the operation was “to address the growing concern of organised street begging involving foreign nationals.
“This activity poses a national security risk and damages the image of our country,” he added.
Many of those arrested had entered Ghana via “unapproved routes, bypassing essential immigration”, he said.
Many of those caught in the raid were from neighbouring junta-led Sahelian country of Burkina Faso, as well as from Togo. Some of the others were from as far away as Nigeria.
They will undergo security and medical screening before repatriation to their home countries, with the authorities promising to treat them with “the highest professionalism, with respect for their human rights”.
Some local people welcomed the action.
John Gyamfi, a 43-year-old Ghanaian spare parts dealer, said the arrests were “long overdue”.
“Some of these foreigners engage in prostitution and street begging,” he said.
“It’s embarrassing: they come here and people think they are Ghanaians and they embarrass the good name of Ghana. If they go, the streets will be neat again,” he added.
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But some undocumented migrants say desperation, not crime, was behind their arrival in Ghana.
“Finding food has become a problem for us,” Chamsiya Alhassan, a mother from Niger told AFP as she queued for a bus.
“Our husbands and relatives have been killed. We are here only to find something to eat,” she added.
The Sahel region is battling growing jihadist insurgencies linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
