It is five weeks now since reports of terror spread by machete-wielding assailants started circulating out of the greater Masaka sub-region. 26 people had been hacked to death by press time.
To this, the Uganda Police Force has confirmed the arrest of 15 assailants connected to the machete-wielding killings in the greater Masaka sub-region. These assailants had established Lwengo and Masaka as their target centres, while cells had been established in Bukoto South and Kimanya Kabonero.
The Police spokesperson, Fred Enanga, while speaking to journalists at the Media Centre, confirmed that Police arrested 69 suspects connected to the killings before zeroing down on 15 as key suspects upon sieving of whom nine were arrested from Lwengo and six from Masaka districts.
“The security task team is actively investigating the murderous rampage by an organized gang of criminal assailants and has so far arrested 15 suspects who are connected to the staggering and vicious murders in Masaka District.”
The assailants according to Police had established Lwengo and Masaka as their target centres while Bukoto South and Kimanya Kabonero were cells of operation which according to Enanga, the Police was able to dismantle.
Police further say the assailants are residents in the said region and living within the community, preferring to attack the weak people. The majority of the dead are elderly. Police have now started identifying relatives of the elderly in the region for protection and safety.
“Because it’s the elderly who are most victimized. So, we want to come up with a protective arrangement where if you have an elderly person who is staying alone, it is better that we either arrange for such people to stay with other relatives who are many in number,” Enanga said.
But despite the police arrests, murders continue – with the sub-region living on the edge.
