Senior Four candidate electrocuted in Busia

A Senior Four candidate at Buhobe Secondary School in Busia District has been electrocuted.

Elisha Noah Bogere, 20, was on October 7 electrocuted as he hanged clothes on a line at premises he was renting with ten other students at Buhobe Trading Centre.

The officer in-charge (OC) of Fire and Rescue Services in Busia District, Jessica Amuge, said: “We have embarked on investigations relating to illegal power connections.

The landlord, who by press time was not available, is said to have tapped an illegal connection from his house to one of the video halls at Buhobe Trading Centre, which is said to have led to a power leakage.

Buhobe Secondary School head teacher Deogratius Mugeni told Monitor that they “had received the tragic news with shock.”

“It is sad that this morning we lost one of our candidates who was supposed to sit for his Uganda Certificate Examinations (UCE) examinations next week,” Mugeni noted.

Quoting student sources, Mugeni said the deceased had taken bath as he prepared to report to school for morning lessons before he was electrocuted.

Mugeni further described the deceased as a “disciplined, hardworking and humble student who will be missed dearly by the entire community of the school”.

The deceased’s father, Patrick Masiga, said the family had “high hopes” in him.

He asked police to expedite their inquest and bring whoever is responsible for his son’s death to book.

By press time, police had taken the body to Busia Health Centre IV for postmortem, before handing it over to the family for burial.

Cases of electrocution are common in Uganda with authorities mostly attributing repeated incidents to sagging power lines.