Victims of Kamwokya Night Curfew Operations Nursing Deadly Injuries

Three people from the city suburbs of Kamwokya are nursing life-threatening injuries in different Hospitals they sustained at the hands of Police and Military officers during night curfew operations.   

Sam Onyapidi, a waiter at Munyonyo Resort hotel and resident of Kifumbira Zone in Kamwokya claims that police officers stabbed him in the stomach along Mawanda Road on Sunday night while returning from duty. Onyapidi is in the Intensive Care Unit-ICU at Mulago National Referral Hospital.

His family says that Onyapidi tried to explain to the officers and presented both his national and work identity cards, that he was returning from work but the officers beat him into pulp. He reportedly tried to escape prompted one of the officers to stab him in the stomach with a sharp knife and left him bleeding.      

His aunt, Rose Amusugut, says that some residents who witnessed the torture helped rush her nephew to a nearby clinic for the first aid and later took him to Mulago Hospital in very bad shape, where doctors put him on oxygen.  

//Cue in; "This is not …

Cue Out… the police and Army //             

Onyapidi is not the only victim of the violent enforcement of the nighttime curfew. Aloysius Ssengoba is also nursing injuries following the torture by security personnel. According to Ssengoba, police officers surrounded him along Church Road in Kamwokya around 9 pm on Tuesday last week while returning for a funeral in Mityana district.     

He says that soldiers and police officers did not listen to his explanations as they pounced on him with batons claiming that he was part of the gangs in Kamwokya. Ssengoba is currently nursing a big cut on the head at the KCCA Hospital in Kamwokya.

“I stopped and tried to explain to them that I was coming from a burial. Nevertheless, they immediately started the beatings. They left me bleeding in a trench on the roadside. My only case was flouting the curfew,” said Ssengoba.

Emma Muwonge, another resident of Kifumbira zone in Kamwokya is also nursing a broken leg and injury on the left eye. He explains the soldiers and police officers arrested around 9:00 pm on Thursday while returning from work at Acacia mall. 

He explains that he pleaded with the officers to arrest him as they rained kicks and blows accusing him of being part of the gangs that snatches people’s phones. Good Samaritans rushed Muwonge to Zamzam Clinic in Kamwokya after finding him lying unconscious on the roadside.

//Cue in; “Yenayena ngatilika omusayi…

Cue Out… kamunguluze yakozesa kyambe,”//           

Brian Kalulanga, the Chairperson of Kifumbira zone, says police and army officers enforcing the night curfew at Kamwokya police post have ignored their main role of protecting people and their properties and instead resorted to brutalizing them. 

He says that they have reported several complaints at Mawanda Police Station and Kamwokya police post about the brutal conduct of the officers but nothing has been done.

//Cue in; “Tugenze kupolice naye …      

Cue… ntetuyambibwa tukoye //             

The Kampala Metropolitan Deputy Police Spokesperson, Luke Owoyesigyire has advised the affected residents to take written complaints to the Kira-Road police Division for assistance.  Last year, security agencies directly led to the death of at least 20 people in the first four months while implementing the COVID-19 prevention guidelines.

The victims died at the hands of Uganda People’s Defense Forces-UPDF, Uganda Police Force and Local Defense Unit –LDU personnel who were enforcing orders intended to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus disease.