KAMPALA — Busoga region might not have featured among the prominent cases Police used to peg concerns over the continuous incidents of child murders in the country but that is hardly a consolation in light of recent grim cases such as in Kakira Town Council, Jinja and Malongo Subcounty in Mayuge.
In a statement on Tuesday, Police spokesperson Fred Enanga decried domestic violence, which is a major risk for children — although ritual sacrifice and other such inhumane vices have always been on the loose end of many of such killings.
Pastor Israel Isama Buyinza of Deliverance and Healing Ministries in Nansana in Kampala and Prophet Joseph Sserubiri and his lover Felista Namaganda are currently on remand over the ritual killing of Trinity Nakisuyi Nabirye in Kakira last December.
Buyinza is alleged to have convinced Sserubiri and Namaganda to kill the 4-year-old girl, a daughter of their landlord, as part of ritual sacrifice to gain more followers at their new church in Kakira.
The incident sent shivers in Kakira like that felt in It is reported that, Kisilo Village in Mayuge when 18-month-old Judith Karo was kidnapped while out to play with other children only for his mutilated body to be discovered in a sugarcane plantation.
Coming just days after a woman in Kampala was captured on amateur video brutally molesting her son, Enanga called upon the public to report any incidents where children are vulnerable to the nearest police station, LCs. Probation officers and any other NGOs advocating for children’s rights.
Depression and poverty
Citing various recent high-profile cases across the country, Enanga said police in Wakiso are investigating the murder of Sserubiri Train, a 4-year-old suspected to have been killed by the step-mother, Asiimwe Honest, at Nakirama cell, Kyengera Town Council, in Wakiso District. The victim was the son of Kizza James, who separated with his mother while two years.
“The victim’s body had scars on the face and the stomach,” Enanga said, citing investigation report.
In another incident, the police at Nyendo in Masaka city have put up a serious manhunt for a father, Gerald Kilembo , for the suspected murder of his son, Gerald Ssebugwawo aged four months.
“The suspect, a drug addict and alcoholic, was in an abusive relationship with his wife Kasozi Hajara at Kirowoza village, Nyendo,” he said.
“On May 1, he seriously assaulted his wife, who was carrying their 4-month-old son on the back. She fell down with the child and they both sustained serious injuries. Unfortunately, their son died three days later due to the injuries sustained in the domestic violence.”
Some of the recent incidents include those cited in Gulu, Kween and Nakapiripirit districts with the one in Buvuma a grim and sickening level domestic violence can reduce people to.
On May 6, Allan Wamboka got involved in a domestic fight with his wife Zaina Magoba. While the wife fled the house to report the matter at Nkata police post, the man got down to a cold blooded work.
Magoba returned to find her husband barely breathing in a pool of blood and her one-year old daughter Safina Kisakyamukama equally socked in blood, one she was deathly cold.
Kisakyamukama had been stabbed to death by Wamboka, who had then turned the knife and on himself.
“All the incidents above show how vulnerable children are due to acts of domestic violence or reckless behavior by parents and guardians,” Enanga said.
The New Vision, a government-owned newspaper, on Tuesday reported that up to 14 million of Uganda’s 44 million people are mentally ill. The report, quoting the World Health Organisation (WHO), attributed the crisis to post-Covid trauma and poverty.
WHO ranks Uganda is among the top six countries in Africa with highest rates of depressive disorders.
According to Dr. Charles Olalo, Director of Curative Services, the number of people with mental disorders has grown exponentially in the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Olalo said before the COVID-19 pandemic, 35% of the population suffered from mental health disorders, but this number has since increased with a rise in patients seeking treatment in health facilities.
