Bodies of Kasese victims rotting away

Kasese. The bodies of the victims of the weekend raid by government forces on the Rwenzururu king’s palace have begun rotting at the overwhelmed Kasese Health Center III, emitting horrid stench with one resident relocating from the suffocated neighbourhood.

The bad odour, and accompanying tension made worse by heavy military deployments, has affected activities of nearby Kasese Primary, Mother Care Preparatory, Kasese High, Kasese Junior and Celaca Vocational schools.

Mother Care Preparatory School has been closed and children sent home. A parent at the school who declined to be named for security reasons, told Daily Monitor that the children had complained to the school administration after bullets were fired in the area for two successive days, prompting the head teacher to discontinue final examinations that were underway.

Emotional relatives and friends yesterday paced up and down between the police station and the Kasese Health Centre III to establish if their missing persons were dead, in detention or hiding. Security forces that have ringed off the health centre turned the bereaved as well as journalists and curious onlookers away, without giving reasons. Inside, a source said post-mortem led by police surgeon Moses Byaruhanga was underway and no corpse would be released to relatives without autopsy. There are more corpses than refrigerators at the health facility’s morgue, rendering them to decay. Relatives of police killed in the line of duty by alleged attackers --- a moniker the government uses in the current incident to refer to suspected rebellious royal guards --- were ready with hearses to transport their bodies of their loved ones. They were kept waiting as police said they would release names of all those killed in the Sunday attacks today. (NMG)