Apart from hunting the terrorists, the country strategy of vigilance (alertness), is helping to minimize damage. The suicide bombers at both CPS and IGG office were forced to detonate their bombs at the check point of Police outside and also outside of the IGG office.
There are always more than 10 police officers sitting or standing around the quarter guard especially during the morning hours or late afternoon. For instance, the quarter guard checking room often has not less than five police officers registering and checking people accessing the CPS premises.
One of the bombs went off at the Central Police Station-CPS, Kampala along Buganda Road while the second went off at Raja Chambers and Jubilee Insurance Building along Parliamentary Avenue.
The IPS building where the blast occurred, is strategically located next to Parliament, Queens Chambers-where MPs offices are located, City Hall, The Office of the Inspector General of Government, the Ministry of ICT, the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and the Uganda Prisons Headquarters, among others.
The Islamic State, a global terror organization had also claimed responsibility for the bombings although police still maintained that what happened was a work of domestic terror groups with links to ADF.
Now Simon Baleke, a fisherman at Bugoma landing site in Kyangwali sub county in Kikuube says ever since the FPU commenced their operations on the lake, attacks by suspected Congolese militiamen on Ugandan fishermen have stopped. He wants the operation to continue to save them from being attacked by the suspected Congolese armed men.
Our reporters found him parked at Parliamentary Avenue opposite the headquarters of Uganda Prisons Service with blood and flesh still stuck on his car windscreen and bonnet. He says he is still in shock and confusion.
Joshua Kananura, the Rakai District Police Commander, says that fishermen and the police managed to retrieve the bodies and took them for postmortem before handing them over to the deceased’s respective homes.
As Uganda marks the first anniversary of the November 18th protests triggered by arrest of Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine during campaign season that resulted scores of deaths and hundreds of abductions, URN interviewed for young men on how the abduction and arrests impacted them.
Security agencies in Kotido district have banned night movements along the Kotido-Moroto road following a resurgence of armed conflicts. Statistics from the office of the Resident District Commissioner indicate that within the last 30 days at least 42 people in Kotido district have been killed by the armed cattle rustlers or during a gunfire exchange with security forces in the area.
All roads to the city have now been sealed off as police cordoned off Buganda Road, Lumumba Avenue and Parliament avenue as crime scenes. The junction between Mapeera House, Mabirizi Plaza and City Square has been sealed off by military and police trucks and hundreds of people are now seen walking out of the central business district.
Ambulances, one after another, are bringing in the injured majority of who are police officers. It is believed that they were brought from the Central Police Station-CPS, where the first blast went off.
Our reporter at the parliament avenue, says that three vehicles around Jubilee Building are on fire. Two police officers could be seen lying lifeless on the ground near the blast scene between Jubilee Tower and Queen's Chambers.
