Category Archives: Uganda

Ugandan president fires son from military role after ‘capture Nairobi’ tweet

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Latest in series of provocative tweets leads to removal of Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba as infantry commander

The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has fired his son as commander of the country’s infantry forces after the son tweeted an unprovoked threat to capture the capital of neighbouring Kenya, drawing widespread concern in east Africa.

Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, labelled “the tweeting general” of Uganda, in recent months had sparked anger among some Ugandans who see his frequent tweets as provocative and sometimes dangerous.

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Uganda’s suspension of LGBT charity a ‘clear witch-hunt’, say campaigners

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Country’s government says Sexual Minorities Uganda ‘operating illegally’ in east African nation

The Ugandan government has suspended the country’s leading gay rights organisation, accusing it of operating illegally in the east African nation, in a move campaigners condemned as “a clear witch-hunt”.

The National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) – part of the internal affairs ministry – announced on Friday that it had suspended Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug) for not registering with the authorities.

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At least 24 people dead as flash flooding hits eastern Uganda

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More than 5,600 displaced and 400,000 left without clean water after heavy rain causes two rivers to burst banks

At least 24 people have died and more than 5,600 people have been displaced by flash flooding in eastern Uganda.

Two rivers burst their banks after heavy rainfall swept through the city of Mbale over the weekend, submerging homes, shops and roads, and uprooting water pipes. About 400,000 people have been left without clean water, and more than 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of crops have been destroyed.

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Lavrov’s African tour another front in struggle between west and Moscow

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Analysis: Foreign minister seeks to win friends and influence people in countries where closeness can be traced back to USSR

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is arriving in Uganda on the latest stop of his tour of Africa, aimed at rallying support on the continent for Russia as the war in Ukraine goes into its sixth month.

Many African leaders have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have accused the US and Nato of starting or prolonging the conflict.

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Growing numbers of young Africans want to move abroad, survey suggests

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Covid, climate, stability and violence contributing to young people feeling pessimistic about future, survey of 15 countries suggests

African youth have lost confidence in their own countries and the continent as a whole to meet their aspirations and a rising number are considering moving abroad, according to a survey of young people from 15 countries.

The pandemic, climate crisis, political instability and violence have all contributed to making young people “jittery” about their futures since the Covid pandemic began, according to the African Youth Survey published on Monday.

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‘We’ve got other things to worry about’: former colonies react to platinum jubilee

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In Africa, celebrations in honour of the Queen stir nostalgia in some, resentment in others

The jubilee has met with a muted response in much of sub-Saharan Africa, with commentators evoking the troubled history of the British empire, London’s diminished influence and the distraction of deepening economic problems on the continent to explain the apparent apathy.

Buckingham Palace listed 18 official beacons lit in commemoration across Africa last week, and Seychelles president Wavel Ramkalawan described the Queen as “a remarkable global personality whose legacy transcends national borders” who was “loved and respected by the entire world”. But such sentiments are not universal.

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‘You hear bullets, you run’: Congolese refugees stream over Uganda’s border

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As thousands flee the latest fighting in DRC to join 1.5m already in Uganda, the UN’s food aid agency is stretched as never before

The rain will determine what time Uwimana Nsengiyuava gets on the truck to Nyakabande transit centre, where Uganda is hosting 20,000 refugees who, like her, have fled fresh fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Since March, up to 500 refugees a day have been silently streaming into the east African country via Kisoro, a picturesque district in south-west Uganda dotted with endless hills, streams and a lake.

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US supreme court abortion reversal would be global ‘catastrophe’ for women

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If Roe v Wade is overturned, it will encourage anti-choice groups – particularly in the developing world, activists warn

The probable demise of abortion as a federal right in the US will be a “catastrophe” for women in low and middle-income countries, with an emboldened anti-choice movement likely to raise renewed pressure on hard-won gains, doctors and activists have warned.

The leak this month of the US supreme court’s draft majority opinion, which argued that the 1973 ruling effectively legalising abortion had been “egregiously wrong from the start”, stunned and enraged many in America.

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Sumaya Sadurni: photojournalist and ‘rock’n’roll Mother Teresa’ dies at 32

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Described as ‘outstanding and fearless’ by Bobi Wine, tributes have been paid to Sadurni, whose work featured in the Guardian and New York Times

Sumaya Sadurni Carrasco has died while travelling to take photographs for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine in northern Uganda. Thomas Mugisha, an NGO worker, also died in the accident on 7 March.

Sumy, as she was known, was a talented, driven and courageous photojournalist with a rare gift for friendship. At just 32 years old, she had built a powerful body of work, which had been published in some of the world’s best-known publications; in 2020 she was shortlisted for the Guardian’s agency photographer of the year. She also leaves a legacy of knowledge and inspiration that she passed on to young photographers as a Uganda Press Photo award mentor, a teacher at Makerere University and a Canon trainer.

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‘Anything to stop the massacres’: peace still eludes DRC as armed groups proliferate

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After years of conflict between the DR Congo’s ineffective army, rebel forces and local militias, can Uganda’s entry into the war bring peace?

For the past three months, Ugandan forces have been bombarding Islamist rebels in its border region with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The offensive, in the Rwenzori mountain range that straddles both countries, has forced many Congolese to leave their homes and move to the cities for shelter.

Sarah Kasanga* is one. The Allied Democratic Force (ADF) militia stormed Kalingathe, her village north of Beni, in December 2019. People were made to lie on the floor while rebels searched homes for food, pots, money or clothes.

DRC soldiers overlook Virunga national park at a military base on the outskirts of Beni

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‘I’m free at last’: Uganda’s rudest poet on prison, protest and finding a new voice in Germany

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Stella Nyanzi talks about challenging Uganda’s President Museveni from her new home and why she had to leave the land she loves

The first few days of Stella Nyanzi’s new life in Germany have not been without their challenges, from navigating the TV and internet in a different language to finding the right school for her three teenagers. On the second day, the family went shopping for clothes – “thick jackets, mittens and scarves” – to see them through the fierce Bavarian winter. For her 14-year-old twins, who have lived their whole lives in sub-Saharan Africa and who insisted on wearing Crocs with no socks on the flight over, the sub-zero temperatures were a rude awakening.

At the centre of it all, however, has been deep sense of relief. Nyanzi, a 47-year-old outspoken scholar, poet and human rights advocate whose irreverent writing about Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has seen her jailed twice, decided enough was enough. She has been accepted on a writers-in-exile programme run by PEN Germany, and has no intention of returning to Uganda while the 77-year-old Museveni is in power. And while there are many concerns about how she and her children are going to settle into Munich life, the sense of freedom is powering her on.

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Term starts in Uganda – but world’s longest shutdown has left schools in crisis

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Pre-Covid the country battled poor learning outcomes, now experts fear fee rises and school closures will see many more children miss out

The gate that once proudly displayed the name of Godwins primary school in Kampala has been removed. The compound, where pupils played at break time, is now a parking area for trucks ferrying goods to the nearby market, while the classrooms have been turned into a travellers’ lodge.

Uganda’s schools were ordered to reopen on Monday 10 January, after nearly two years of closure – the longest school shutdown in the world – but not all were able to welcome pupils back. Godwins, in Kalerwe in Kawempe division, is one of the many schools that will never reopen. It had been in existence for 20 years catering to children whose parents work in nearby Kalerwe market.

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PEN prize-winning Ugandan novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija illegally detained and tortured

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The author is being held after tweets criticising President Yoweri Museveni and his son

Ugandan satirical novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who was named International Writer of Courage by PEN last year, has been illegally detained and tortured for criticising the president and his son, his lawyer said.

Gunmen came to the writer’s house on 28 December after a series of tweets about the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, including one calling him a thief and his son and presumed successor “an incompetent pig-headed curmudgeon”.

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Voices of Covid doctors: ‘It was always about trying to save you’ – video

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Healthcare workers around the world have been on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic for almost two years, which put them through the darkest days of their careers. Five doctors who have worked in hospitals in Uganda, New Zealand, the US, India, the UK and Brazil told the Guardian about how the pandemic had tested them personally and professionally, but how they continue to find hope and resolve to keep working.

Thanks to Dr Peter Kavuma, Dr Dalilah Restrepo, Dr Yogesh Kalkonde, Dr Anne Menezes and Dr Megan Smith, who is also a spokesperson at the campaigning organisation EveryDoctor

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‘2.4C is a death sentence’: Vanessa Nakate’s fight for the forgotten countries of the climate crisis

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She started a youth strike in Uganda – then just kept going. She discusses climate justice, reparations, imperialism and why the global north must take responsibility

In February 2020, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Vanessa Nakate had her point made for her in the most vivid and “frustrating and heartbreaking” way. The Ugandan climate crisis activist, who turned 25 last month, had gone to Switzerland to introduce some perspective to its cosy consensus. “One of the things that I wanted to emphasise was the importance of listening to activists and people from the most affected areas,” she says. “How can we have climate justice if the people who are suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis are not being listened to, not being platformed, not being amplified and are left out of the conversation? It’s not possible.”

To this end, she appeared at a press conference with Greta Thunberg and three other white, European youth climate strikers. When the Associated Press published a photo of the meeting, it cropped out Nakate. It was, she said at the time, her first encounter with direct and blatant racism – and only reinforced her point and made her campaign more urgent. AP later expressed “regret” for its “error in judgment”.

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Uganda police kill five men after suicide bombings, including Muslim cleric

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Authorities accuse the five of having ties with the extremist group blamed for bomb blasts in the capital Kampala

Ugandan authorities have killed at least five people, including a Muslim cleric, accused of having ties to the extremist group responsible for Tuesday’s suicide bombings in the capital.

Four men were killed in a shootout in a frontier town near the western border with Congo as they tried to cross back into Uganda, police said on Thursday. A fifth man, a cleric named Muhammad Kirevu, was killed in “a violent confrontation” when security forces raided his home outside Kampala, police spokesperson Fred Enanga said.

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At least three killed in suicide bomb attacks in Ugandan capital, Kampala

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Two explosions within minutes in attack blamed on Allied Democratic Forces extremist group

Two explosions rocked Uganda’s capital, Kampala, early on Tuesday, killing at least three civilians in what police described as a coordinated attack by extremists.

Three suicide bombers also died in the blasts, police said. The explosions caused chaos in Kampala as terrified residents fled the city’s centre.

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Ugandan children held in prison for months after crackdown on opposition

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Victims describe systematic physical abuse, denial of basic legal rights and appalling conditions

Ugandan security services held children for months in prisons after successive crackdowns against opposition activists earlier this year, witnesses and victims have said.

Adults and children described systematic physical abuse, denial of basic legal rights and appalling conditions as they waited for trial on charges they claim were fabricated.

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We know who caused the climate crisis – but they don’t want to pay for it | Vanessa Nakate

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My country, Uganda, and much of Africa has been battered by climate-related disasters. Cop26 is a chance for the biggest polluters to set up a compensation fund

While walking with a friend through central Kampala last month, we saw a police truck go by, a body in the back.

It’s a sight that has become more common in Uganda. The life of that person, and many others, was taken by a heavy downpour in my home city. Uganda has been battered by floods in recent years, as well as droughts and plagues of locusts. So much has been damaged and lost here as a result of the climate crisis.

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