Category Archives: Uganda

Uganda’s crackdown on public gatherings ruled unconstitutional

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Swipe at lawmakers as judge says only ‘undemocratic and authoritarian regimes’ seek to ban peaceful protests

Government opponents and human rights activists have welcomed a decision by Uganda’s constitutional court to overturn legislation that gave police “supernatural powers” to stop public gatherings and protests.

“It is only in undemocratic and authoritarian regimes that peaceful protests and public gatherings of a political nature are not tolerated,” said Justice Cheborion Barishaki in a ruling on Thursday.

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‘Sensitise to sanitise’: Bobi Wine uses song to fight coronavirus across Africa

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Ugandan star among those taking to the airwaves with a message on how to avoid spreading Covid-19

Bobi Wine, a Ugandan musician and rising political force, has joined the likes of footballer-turned-president George Weah in resorting to song to help stem the spread of coronavirus in Africa.

Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, worked with fellow artist Nubian Li to release a song on Wednesday laced with east Africa’s signature rhumba melodies about the importance of personal hygiene.

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Mogadishu’s refugees ‘waiting for death’ as Covid-19 reaches Somalia

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Fears are growing about the spread of coronavirus in camps where few can afford soap, water is rare and social distancing impossible

In the Nabadoon camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Asho Abdullahi Hassan, a 40-year-old mother of seven, has heard about the coronavirus on the radio.

“I am very scared about this deadly virus. I only heard about it from the news. It is like we are waiting for death to come,” she says.

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Scientists turn to tech to prevent second wave of locusts in east Africa

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Researchers use supercomputer to predict potential breeding areas as food security fears grow

Scientists monitoring the movements of the worst locust outbreak in Kenya in 70 years are hopeful that a new tracking programme they will be able to prevent a second surge of the crop-ravaging insects.

The UN has described the locust outbreak in the Horn of Africa, and the widespread breeding of the insects in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia that has followed, as “extremely alarming”.

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Faulty condoms leave charity facing court case in Uganda

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Two men sue over alleged HIV and gonorrhoea infections that they claim were caused by defective contraceptives

Two Ugandan men have taken court action against an international charity for distributing faulty condoms which, they claim, led to one of them contracting HIV and the other gonorrhoea.

In a lawsuit, Joseph Kintu and Sulaiman Balinya say they bought Life Guard condoms from stores supplied by the Marie Stopes organisation in Uganda in October last year.

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Uganda’s ‘locust commander’ leads the battle against a new enemy

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The army has been called in to eliminate the insects swarming across Africa, but their mission is dangerous and unending

  • Photographs by Edward Echwalu for the Guardian

Sitting at a plastic table in the garden of Timisha hotel in Soroti, eastern Uganda, Major General Samuel Kavuma takes a drag of his cigarette and looks down at his phone, which has barely stopped ringing for the past hour.

A military figure for nearly 40 years, Kavuma fought the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgent group. Now, he’s become the “locust commander”, the man leading the fight against the country’s worst locust outbreak in decades.

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The contraceptive helping refugee women plan their families

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Instead of becoming ‘factories for babies’, women who’ve fled South Sudan to Uganda are trying new options for managing their reproductive health

Christine Lamwaka and her husband gathered their six children and fled. It was April 2017 and their town in South Sudan had just been attacked. They walked for two days from Eastern Equatoria before crossing the border into Uganda.

“It was hard to flee with the young children. We struggled to run. I thought we couldn’t make it alive,” says Lamwaka, who was 22 at the time of the attack.

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Stella Nyanzi marks release from jail in Uganda with Yoweri Museveni warning

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Writer and activist who was imprisoned for insulting Ugandan president calls on him to go as 18-month sentence is revoked

The feminist academic and writer Stella Nyanzi has been released from prison after her 18-month sentence for insulting Uganda’s president was quashed.

Nyanzi collapsed as she left court in Kampala on Thursday, and scuffles broke out between her supporters and prison wardens, who fired live rounds into the air to disperse the crowd.

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Huge locust swarms raise fears of food shortages in South Sudan

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UN warns 25 million people could be affected as wartorn country is beset by fresh wave of insects

Swarms of desert locusts, which have been ravaging crops and grazing land across east Africa, have now crossed the border into South Sudan, a country already struggling from widespread hunger and years of civil war.

The UN has warned that an imminent second hatch of the insects could threaten the food security of 25 million people across the region.

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Acid attack survivors in Uganda – in pictures

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Acid attacks have been on the rise in Uganda. Organisations such as End Acid Violence Uganda are pushing for a law that would see harsher punishments for perpetrators such as a ‘no bail policy’, satisfactory compensation for victims, and implementation of a medical care policy paid for by the government. End Acid Violence Uganda officers make regular home visits to survivors to offer support and guidance.

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A humanitarian crisis looms in Africa unless we act fast to stop the desert locust

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The destructive migratory pest threatens catastrophe as it swarms through countries already plagued by food insecurity

A colleague at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tells a terrifying story about the desert locust.

In 2005 she visited farmers in Niger as they prepared to harvest their crops. Just hours later, a swarm of locusts swept through the area and destroyed everything. One month later, truckloads of families were forced to leave their homes because they had nothing to eat.

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Food fears grow as swarms of locusts reach Uganda and Tanzania

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Outbreak in east Africa has already devastated crops across a swath of Kenya and Somalia

Massive swarms of locusts sweeping across much of east Africa have reached Uganda and Tanzania, the United Nations has said, threatening millions more people with hunger in an already fragile region.

Tanzania has detected swarms in its northern border areas close to Mount Kilimanjaro and hired three planes to spray pesticide, a tactic seen as the most effective means of countering the spread of the insects.

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Endangered mountain gorillas ‘killed by lightning’ in Uganda

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The four were members of a group known as the Hirwa family that had crossed into Mgahinga national park from Rwanda

Four endangered mountain gorillas, including three adult females, have been killed by an apparent lightning strike in a Ugandan national park, a conservation group has said.

A post-mortem examination has been performed on the four, including a male infant, who died on 3 February in Mgahinga National Park in south-west Uganda.

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‘She can’t say no’: the Ugandan men demanding to be breastfed

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A study is looking into the coercive practice in Uganda, amid calls for the government to address the issue

Jane’s* husband likes breast milk. “He says he likes the taste of it, and that it helps him in terms of his health. He feels good afterwards,” said the 20-year-old from Uganda, who has a six-month-old baby.

Jane said her husband started asking for her milk the night she came home from the hospital after giving birth. “He said it was to help me with the milk flow. I felt it was OK.”

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‘Food prices shot up’: floods spark a scramble for survival in east Africa

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From Somalia to South Sudan, torrential rains have devastated crops and made roads impassable, sending the cost of food soaring

Before the floods hit her village, crumpling buildings, ripping out pathways and submerging swathes of land, Nurto Mohamed Hassan could buy a kilogram of rice for the equivalent of about 70p.

Now the cost is more than £1. This may not seem a lot in isolation but, for people with little money and families to feed, it is a significant rise.

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‘You can’t handcuff my spirit’: jailed writer wins freedom of expression prize

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Stella Nyanzi, imprisoned in Uganda after writing poem about president’s mother’s vagina, lambasts regime’s ‘fear of writers’

The Ugandan academic, writer and feminist activist Dr Stella Nyanzi, imprisoned for criticising the country’s president, has been awarded the Oxfam Novib/PEN International award for freedom of expression.

Nyanzi has been in Luzira women’s prison in Kampala, the capital, for nearly 15 months after writing a poem about President Yoweri Museveni’s mother’s vagina. The poem uses the metaphor of her vagina and Museveni’s birth to criticise his near 35-year rule.

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Officials charged with corruption over award of Uganda refugee camp deals

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Money laundering and abuse of office also among allegations levelled at two senior figures

Two senior Ugandan government officials have been charged with money laundering, corruption and abuse of office over the awarding of contracts at refugee camps.

Robert Baryamwesigwa and Fred Kiwanuka, both at the time commandants at the Bidi-Bidi refugee settlement in Yumbe district in the north of the country, were charged this week with demanding and receiving bribes of more than 393m Ugandan shillings (about £82,000).

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Uganda’s thirst for hydropower raises fears for environment

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Murchison Falls is a magnet for tourism but energy projects, not least a possible dam, threaten the wildlife haven

Along the road that takes you into Murchison Falls national park, animals once roamed freely. Narrow roads provided the perfect environment for them, so “they [didn’t] feel like they are in a foreign land”, says tour operator Everest Kayondo.

But not any more. The park’s lush forest is being uprooted and red trucks and yellow diggers stand ready to pave the road – and the way for new energy projects.

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Uganda’s pop star MP Bobi Wine arrested as police break up rally

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Gunfire also heard as he tried to hold gathering for 2021 presidential bid

Ugandan police have arrested Bobi Wine and fired teargas at his supporters as the pop star turned politician tried to hold a rally for his 2021 presidential bid.

Wine and his People Power pressure group had aimed to start a programme of consultations with supporters on his plans to challenge Yoweri Museveni, 75, who has ruled Uganda since 1986.

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Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni begins six-day trek through jungle

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President’s critics decry plan to retrace steps of his guerrilla forces that seized power in 1986

The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, began a six-day march through the jungle on Saturday to retrace the steps of his guerrilla forces when they seized power three decades ago

Museveni is one of Africa’s longest-ruling leaders. He seized power in 1986 after taking part in rebellions to end the rule of Idi Amin and Milton Obote, and is expected to seek a sixth term in office in elections due in 2021. Critics dismissed the march as an attempt to rally support ahead of the poll.

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