One Dead, 4 Hospitalized After Fresh Rakai Attacks

One person has been hacked to death and four others hospitalized after being attacked by unknown people in Rakai district.

machetes

The incident happened at Kisunku village in Lwankoni sub county, Rakai district in the early hours of Monday.

The attacked family belongs to Joseph Ssempijja. The assailants armed with machetes according to survivors hacked Joseph Ssempijja, his children John Ssegayi and Dimitria Naluuge and left them for dead. The assailants also hacked Stella Kyomuheezi, Ssempijja’s wife to death.

The survivors have been admitted at Mwebe medical centre in Kalisizo town council in critical condition.

Joseph Ssempijja, the head of the family who is also admitted with severe injuries says they were sleeping when the men broke into his house at around 1 AM and started beating them. He says the assailants then started hacking his wife and children. He explains that at this point, he pleaded with the attackers not to kill them but they continued.

Ssempijja says one of them raised a machete and hacked him on the forehead.

His five-year-old son John Ssegayi lost one ear.

Judith Nakabira, the neighbour says she heard an alarm from Ssempijja’s house.  She says she also started making loud alarms calling for rescue but it was too late. Nakabira claims that she saw some three men running away after the incident.

Badru Mujjuzi, the Lwankoni sub county councillor, says he called police to intervene but Nelson Sooma, the Rakai District Police Commander, told him they do not have a driver to help them get to the scene.

Taban Chiriga, the Rakai Criminal Investigations Officer, says police have started investigations. He said it’s too early to tell who the attackers are but some people have been interrogated.

Last year, nine members of the same family were killed in Kyebe sub county, Rakai district. A man believed to have participated in the murder of Pastor Steven Mugambe and his family of eight was remanded to Masaka prison last week.The suspect is Tanzanian national Vincent Fangesi “Kanyama” who is 29 years of age.

Fangesi, a truck driver and a resident of Morogoro in Tanzania, was arrested in May at Mutukula town soon after entering Uganda.

In 2012, groups of assailants went on rampage in Kyanamukaaka Sub-county in Masaka district killing seven members of two families.

The police arrested the suspected assailants and later released them for lack of incriminating evidence. But the killings went on and up to 35 people were killed in a similar manner.

 

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