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Kasese attacks: Government rejects plans to bury victims in mass graves
RIP. A woman weeps on the casket bearing remains of her relative outside Kasese Municipal Health Centre III mortuary yesterday. PHOTO BY ABUBAKER LUBOWA.
What you need to know:
- A Thursday meeting attended by district leaders, police, and the Kasese resident district commissioner, had resolved that unclaimed bodies be buried in a mass grave.
- Police has refuted reports that children could have been caught up in the attack on the Buhikira palace and killed.
Kasese. Government has objected to a proposal to have the bodies of yet unidentified victims of last week’s Kasese attacks buried in a mass grave.
Kasese Municipal Health Centre was by end of Thursday still stranded with 24 bodies but police brought 30 more that had been taken to hospitals in surrounding districts, bringing the body count to 54.
A Thursday meeting attended by district leaders, police, and the Kasese resident district commissioner, had resolved that unclaimed bodies be buried in a mass grave.
“We will bury all and make the grave very well. Now that police has given us the names of those in prison, we shall ask them who is missing and have their names inscribed on the graves,” Kasese Municipality Mayor Godfrey Kabbyanga said.
However, later, Kasese District chairman Sibendire Bigogo, said: “The idea of the mass grave has been abandoned. We had a meeting yesterday and agreed to bury the dead in a mass grave but when they consulted with the Minister of Internal Affairs, government stopped it.”
Mr Bigogo did not give government’s reason but said the minister had directed that bodies be buried in the same place but separately after taking samples of each so that when DNA is done, the respective families can exhume their dead for proper reburial.
Police and the local leaders had agreed to bury the dead in Bukoki Sub-county on land belonging to Kasese District.
Police Director of Operations Asuman Mugenyi was by press time expected to issue the minister’s directive to the mortuary attendants.
Mr Bigogo, however, expressed worry that police was still allowing relatives of the deceased to try to identify the badly decomposed bodies which he said was impossible.
“I am uncomfortable with the idea of police continuing to allow people to identify the bodies of their relatives” Mr Bigogo said.
He added: “They are now checking the bodies based on the finger nails. People are going to end up burying bodies that are not theirs.”
Other news
Meanwhile, police has refuted reports that children could have been caught up in the attack on the Buhikira palace and killed.
There have been reports that some of the people living at the palace had children with them.
“Among the suspects we have, there are only adults both women and men,” police spokesman Andrew Kaweesi, said.
