http://www.theroot.com/articles/new...tivist_killed_in_ghana.html?wpisrc=topstories
Two Detroit sisters were killed in Ghana, where they were found near their home in the West African country, the Detroit Free Press reports. It is believed that the double killings may have been an argument over land.
Mamelena Dip, born Jeannette Salters, was involved in the African-American and feminist movements in the early 1970s, and helped lead the Detroit chapter of the National Black Feminist Organization, the Free Press notes. The movements ultimately prompted her to uncover her West African roots, and she eventually moved to Ghana and changed her name as part of a movement of Detroit residents who went about reclaiming their roots, the news site notes.
Diop, 75, loved Ghana, according to friends in family, but the bodies of her and her sister, Nzinga Janna, was found near their home this week. Two men have been arrested in connection to the deaths, according to the Free Press.
"I feel terrible about what happened," Greg Salters, her son, said. "It's a tragedy. Words can't even explain how I feel about my mom being taken away from her home, murdered and put in a shallow grave 300 feet from her home.
Salters, who is also from Detroit, believes that individuals who wanted the land that his mother legally obtained from the Ghanaian government, murdered the two sisters.
"Some locals decided they wanted to take the land from them," he said. He said his mother took the issue to court and won.
"I guess the locals decided they were going to take matters into their own hands," the son said. "And they decided to abduct and murder them."
According to her son, Diop traveled back and forth between Detroit and Ghana frequently and was a dual citizen of the U.S. and the West African country. She had been in Detroit two years ago for a funeral on her last visit to the U.S.
