A Cry For Justice.

June 14^th, 2025.

Visual storytelling – News rewriting assignment.

Yeboah Agnes Sefa.

BABJ28052.

Group 3.

Ghana News Agency-Group News Agency.

 Bolgatanga, June 13 (GNA) — A wave of crimson armbands and headscarves swept across Ghanaian pharmacies Thursday as members of the Community Practice Pharmacists Association (CPPA) began a week‑long nationwide mourning for a colleague shot dead in Bolgatanga.

Mohammed Zia‑Ulhak Zibrim, a respected dispenser at Zimax Pharmacy, was killed in a pool of blood on the night of Thursday, June 5. The gunman sped away, leaving customers and passersby in shock. No arrests have yet been announced.

“This was a heinous and tragic act,” CPPA National Chairman Dr. Emmanuel Kwaku Ireland said in a statement released. “The rising threats to the lives of pharmacists working nationwide can no longer be ignored.”

From June 12 through June 18, the CPPA is asking every community pharmacist to wear red clothing and a matching headband in solidarity. Black banners reading “#JusticeForZia”

The association warns that fear of night‑shift violence could soon force many outlets to close after dark, jeopardising access to emergency medicines.

“We are calling on government and the security agencies — the police, the military — to craft and enforce a Protection of Healthcare Workers Act,” Dr. Ireland said. “Nowhere needs it more urgently than the Upper East Region, where an innocent soul was taken.”

Public‑Health Stakes 
Ghana relies heavily on late‑night pharmacies for antimalarials, emergency contraception, and chronic‑disease drugs. “If we lose those hours, public health itself is at risk,” the CPPA cautioned.

Family in Mourning 
 “Our deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones who lost a brother, father, and son,” the CPPA statement said.

. As pharmacies across the country don red, many are asking a single question that hangs heavy in the humid June air: Who will protect those who safeguard our medicines?