On the night of July 12, 2024, Joyce Mary Iwonu, a 16-year-old Primary Six pupil was raped and murdered. The crime was committed in her bedroom, at about 2am, in her father’s home in Koburin Idupa village, in Serere district. That night, her father, David Oluka, was out hunting for white ants, also known as winged termites, with his neighbour. Roasted white ants, served with groundnuts and simsim paste, are a delicacy in the region.
“I last spoke to my daughter at about 8.30pm that evening, when I returned from the first round of trapping white ants. She was sitting on the verandah, having supper. I asked her to go inside the house since it was late and cold,” a tearful Oluka narrates.
At 2am, he went out again to check on his traps with his neighbours. As he was walking back to his home, another neighbour, who had stayed at home, told him he had seen a man running out of his daughter’s hut. “I ran into the hut. I found her brother was awake but when I checked on Joyce, she was dead. Foam was covering her nose and mouth. I raised an alarm to notify my brother in the next homestead. We immediately called the police,” he says.
The police came in the morning. Using a canine dog, they tried to find the suspect, in vain. They recorded the crime under CRB 347/2024. Emmanuel Ojango, a neighbour, says the suspected killer must have had some kind of training. “I think that guy was a serial killer because after strangling the girl, he started setting fire around her body to destroy the evidence. I think he wanted people to say that the girl had been trying to read her books by candlelight and her surroundings caught fire by mistake,” he says.
The suspect only ran away when he heard Iwonu’s brother coming into the hut. Ojango blames the crime on a love triangle. “Information came in that the suspect was her lover. They were both studying in the same school at some time but he had three other girlfriends. When she decided to leave him, he threatened her. He was arrested in Kapelebyong (district),” he says.
Oluka confirms that the suspect was one of his neighbours.“His friends say when they were gathered in a group, smoking cigarettes, he confessed to my daughter. One of his friends informed the police and he was arrested. We are now waiting for the court to set a hearing date. But, the whole village is living in fear,” he says.
A pattern of femicideA few days after Iwonu’s death, on July 26, Betty Anyango, popularly known as Movit, was murdered in Akudama Cell, Kakus Township. Her body was found lying on the road by early risers rushing to their work. A few miles away, in Odungura parish, Mary Akello was strangled to death on August 5, 2024. Earlier, on June 12, 2024, 17-year-old Scovia Apio had been murdered in Ogobai village, Kyere sub-county. The Senior Three student of Homewood Secondary School was strangled to death. A suspect was arrested, and later, released on police bond. On June 23, Betty Ijangolet, a resident of Atukia village in Kagwara sub-county, was strangled to death in a domestic brawl.
On the night of March 2, unknown assailants murdered 65-year-old Anna Mary Akello, a resident of Didetok Town Council. Her neighbour, Betty Aroto, found the body. “The old woman was an early riser, so when I returned from the borehole and did not see her in her compound, I was concerned. Her door was wide open. When I entered the hut, there were two beds. I found her in the second bed, covered with a brand new gomesi. Her neck was broken,” Akello says. A case file, CRB 3300/2024, was opened at Serere Central Police Station. Suspects were arrested but all were released on police bond. Femicide, an extreme form of gender-based violence, is gender-related murder, particularly committed by a man.
This kind of murder is rooted in women’s position in society, unequal distribution of power between men and women, and violence against women. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says most cased of femicide are committed by partners or ex-partners, and involve ongoing abuse, threats, and sexual violence. Last week, Rebecca Cheptegei, a cross-country, long-distance, and marathon runner, died from burn wounds inflicted by her ex-partner who had doused her with petrol and set her alight.
The 33-year-old sustained more than 80 percent burns on her body. Earlier this week, the suspect, David Ndiema, who allegedly burnt Cheptegei over a land dispute, died in a Nairobi hospital. However, there are also cases of non-intimate femicide that have been committed against the women of this country. In 2016 and 2017, at least 28 women were murdered in Nansana Municipality and Katabi Town Council, both in Wakiso district. So far, only one person has been convicted over the murders.
In May, this year, a taxi driver, Isaac Niwagaba, confessed to murdering six women on Entebbe Road, in Wakiso district. He admitted to strangling the women, aged between 20 and 25, in his taxi and dumping the bodies in bushes along the road. The murders occurred between March and May. Global statistics on femicide are not clear. According to the Global Study on Homicide 2023, by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 87,020 women were intentionally killed around the world.
A district gripped by fearAs the sun goes down, disappearing behind the tall trees in the direction of Lake Kyoga, most roads in Serere district are empty. Those that used to be very busy in the evenings such as, Soroti – Serere road, Kidetok – Pingire road, Ocapa – Serere road and Serere – Kagwara road show no signs of life after 6:30pm as residents disappear into their houses. Martha Apolot, a resident of Kidetok Town Council, is one of those who lock their doors by 6pm. She recently survived being murdered.
“It was around 1am and it was raining. I was asleep but a cold draft of air woke me up. I saw that my door was wide open. I went to close it. A few minutes later, the door was pushed open and someone stood in the doorway. I realised it was a man,” she says.
Raising an alarm, Apolot dodged the man and ran out of the room. As she ran, she shouted her neighbour’s name. When the neighbour, a woman, came out to help, the man threatened her.
“She ran back to her house and left me alone with the killer. I fought him for one hour in the rain. He had a rope that he kept trying to slip around my neck. He beat me savagely. Eventually, I overpowered him and he ran away,” she says.
When she returned to her room, Apolot found that her attacker had stolen her Samsung mobile phone and Shs100,000.
“The police came in the morning, but no arrests have been made. I am scared of falling asleep at night, especially when it is raining. I always feel that that man will come back. Josephine Amongin, a tailor in the same town council, is another survivor.
She was unaware that the attacker was lurking in the shadows as she opened her door to fetch rainwater on her verandah at 11pm. “I returned to my room and locked the door. At 2am, I woke up to find a man standing in my house. He was a young man, and short; dressed in dark clothes. When I raised an alarm, he ran out,” she says. Amongin says the lone police officer who responded to her neighbours’ alarms advised them to return to their houses and lock the doors. “He told us he was the only one at the police post and he did not know what kind of weapon the attacker was carrying. He could not do anything for us at that time,” she adds.
Is domestic violence to blame? Harriet Amoding, the district’s senior probation officer, says domestic violence in Serere is on the rise, with a number of men abandoning their responsibilities to their families.
“Sometimes, the husband leaves the family to take up residence with a concubine in the trading centre. To finance their lifestyle, he sells off the family property. When the wife tries to protest, she is threatened with harm or death,” she says. Amoding adds that a number of women are abandoning their homes and children due to a spike in intimate partner violence.
“Two days ago, I handled a case where a mother of nine left her young children behind. The youngest is below two years while the oldest is in Primary Six. The husband came to report her and when I summoned her, she showed me her back. It was full of raw scars.
She also had a panga (machete) slap on her thigh, where she had narrowly survived being cut by her husband,” she says. The probation officer told the woman to take her younger children and return to her parents’ home to heal for a while. She also advised the husband to change his ways.
“We are handling cases where women are being threatened with murder. If she protests her husband’s behaviour, he says, ‘I can break your neck, don’t joke with me.’ The men are not ready to change. Children from such homes are really traumatised. They run away every time daddy returns home because they fear being beaten with mommy,” she explains.
Statistics from a locally based community organisation, Women and Girls Right Advocacy Uganda (WAGRAU), indicate that between January and May, this year, 77 women were sexually assaulted while 137 women were physically assaulted in Serere district.Laxity of security officers?
Joseph Opit Okojo, a former district chairperson of Serere, blames the killings on a lackluster attitude towards security by the key stakeholders.
“I have found that there is laxity in the security teams and district leadership that has led to complacency among community members. People now feel things happen by providence to the extent that when someone raises an alarm, neighbours do not feel obliged to help,” he says. Okojo cautions district leaders that there is a difference between politics and work.
“All these murders are as a result of weaknesses in political leadership. Since 2020, people have never stopped campaigning to the extent that leaders now fear confronting wrong elements in society for fear of losing the vote. They even fear to hold the security agents in the district accountable.
Okojo further accuses the police of failing to carry out intelligence-led operations to root out criminals, saying the night patrols being carried out in the district now are a knee jerk reaction.
“Most of the local councils (LCs), and Gombolola internal security organisation (GISO) agents we have now are obsolete. They are deceiving the president and the government that they are performing their duties. Now, in this district, we are behaving like there is a curfew. The other day I was relaxing in a trading center and at 6.30pm the youths advised me to drive home,” he says. The police, however, say they are doing their best to apprehend the criminals. Edison Obukulem, the East Kyoga police spokesperson, says the killers are not organised criminals.
“The mode of killings is different from that which happened in Nansana and Katabi. The operations range from domestic violence and assault to mob justice. I would like to assure the community that they should not be worried because we have had a number of engagements with stakeholders to have army officers beef up the security in Serere district,” he says.
The stakeholders include General Peter Elwelu, who was recently appointed by President Yoweri Museveni to monitor government programmes in the Teso and Karamoja sub-regions. Others include Major General Don William Nabasa, the UPDF’s third division commander.
“Several security operations have been carried out in those areas and trading centres, especially where marijuana smoking and other criminal activities are being committed. Drug and alcohol abuse is pushing young men to commit murder. I urge the public to give timely information to the police and local authorities to weed out these elements,” Obukulem says.
Only time will tell if the current security operations across the district targeting suspected drug users and dealers will bring an end to the violent killings. Meanwhile, the bereaved families are still waiting for their day in court, when they will come face to face with the killer of their loved ones.
