New evidence on November city riot in Kampala following the arrest of NUP president Kyagulanyi in Luuka Estern Uganda has emerged
A BBC Africa Eye investigation titled, Three Killings in Kampala, reveals that the men, who allegedly targeted and shot civilians dead on Kampala Road, wore military police and field force police uniforms.
They were captured in multiple videos analysed by the British public broadcaster to have sat on the left back-side of a patrol police pickup, registration UP5564, and emblazoned with number 17 on the sides.
The videos shot by well-wishers from different directions and angles show the patrol car speeding from Bombo Road side, with security personnel on its back shooting indiscriminately as city dwellers scampered for safety.
Among them was Kamuyat Nangobi, 28, a waitress and mother of four. Dressed in a black top and red skirt, a bullet caught her on the back of her head as she sprinted to deliver food to her grandfather, Mr Muslim Musimami, based at E-Towers on Kampala Road.
Young people burned tyres and blockaded streets in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, and soldiers fanned out across the city with armored vehicles, a day after the arrest of Wine, a popular reggae singer who is the leading challenger to President Yoweri Museveni in the previous 2021 elections.
“This is a war-like situation, so the army has to deploy,” Brig Flavia Byekwaso, a military spokesperson, told Reuters. “You can see what is going on, people are being stoned, people are being killed, vehicles are being vandalized, tyres everywhere. These things are spontaneous on all streets, so police cannot handle such a situation.”
Images posted on social media showed police in Kampala firing indiscriminately at people in buildings overlooking the protests and unidentifiable men in plainclothes, believed to be security personnel, firing automatic weapons. More than 350 people were arrested, police said.
The exact death toll in the unrest, which spread to other cities during the riot, was uncertain. Kampala’s main mortuary reported receiving 19 bodies, with postmortems revealing the causes of death as gunshots, suffocation from teargas and injuries sustained by a “hit and run” car accident, the Observer, a local newspaper, reported.
Dr Byarugaba Baterana, the executive director of the Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala told reporters that a forty nine people who had been admitted at the hospital ward had died of their injuries.
“We want warn the youths who have been lured into participating in illegal activities to desist from participating in such acts,” said Patrick Onyango, a Kampala police spokesman. “The joint security teams are on top of the situation and will handle anyone who attempts to destabilize the capital city.”
The situation resulted from police arresting NUP President Robert Kyagulanyi, detaining him in Jinja district after being accused of gathering a mass rally while campaigning in eastern Uganda the act which the police say was violating anti-coronavirus.
Bobi Wine, who has emerged as the strongest challenger to Uganda’s longtime leader Yoweri Museveni in elections set for early next year, was released on bail Friday, his lawyer Nicholas Opiyo said.
Opiyo said Wine was arrested on a coronavirus violation. But, he said, “the actual reason really is that it is part of the broader attempt to stifle opposition campaigns.” He noted that Museveni was also holding political rallies without interference by police.
Watch the video below