The boat ambulance was provided to largely evacuate patients from the Islands of Kisiima I, Kisiima II, Rwabitooke and other small islands scattered along parts of Lake Victoria in Jinja district. The boat will also support rescue operations of fishermen and other water transport users in Lake Victoria and River Nile respectively.
The Boat Captain, Augustine Owori made a rescue call to the standby marine police unit stationed at Itanda falls, about 100 meters away from the accident scene.
Rashid Kasaajja, the Bukagabo landing site chairperson, says that much as the Fisheries Protection Unit-FPU personnel have labored to sensitize fishermen on the disadvantages of using illegal fishing gear, which contribute to the increase of fatal accidents across the lake, most of them have remained adamant.
Hassan Latif, a water safety coach attached to Masdar says that Busoga sub-region is still grappling with the challenge of managing drowning cases due to overloading of passenger boats and use of illegal boats during fishing activities.
“A big boat together with the engine costs about Shillings 3.5 million and most of the fishermen who cannot afford such continue to use small boats well aware that, their lives are at risk more so during this rainy season,” he said.
According to preliminary information, the 13 Ugandan traders were sailing on a boat with an unspecified number of bags of maize flour and fish from Sigulu Island in Namayingo district for sale in Kenya.
According to Martin Okidi, a boat captain at the source of the Nile, the four members of the same family, who included two adults and two minors, had gone for a boat ride with a tour guide, when their boat engine developed a mechanical fault on their way to the Source of the Nile and drifted with the fast-flowing waters towards Kiira Power Station.
Isaiah Tumuhimbise, the port officer of Jinja pier, says that the port has been receiving daily tourists and food suppliers which cannot be maintained in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, where social distancing is paramount.
The grenade burst and shuttered Gavuma’s body to pieces this morning while pushing his boat into River Nile. Fishermen normally connect homemade grenades on their boats and link them to small bulbs to attract more fish.
From analysis of the results, 602 candidates (about 28%) were negatively affected by modules such as engineering surveying, engineering mathematics II, Strength of Materials, AutoCAD (a commercial computer-aided design and drafting software application) and Thermodynamics.
The Jinja Zone UPDF spokesperson, George Musinguzi says that they are conducting both day and night search for the body of their colleague. The main search area is around the Owen falls dam which has been cordoned off and restricted from fishermen, tourists, and other water users.
Teachers of different schools in the area argue that the poor working conditions have discouraged them from executing their duties. They want the government to either improvise boats to transport teachers and pupils within the islands or construct teachers’ quarters.
Farouk Isabirye, the Bugonda Village Defense Secretary, says children within the affected areas are yet to commence studies because the only alternative they have is boats, which are costly. Each pupil requires Shillings 2000 to ride on a boat.
The weed was first seen on Uganda's water bodies in 2013, according to data at the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute and has since spread to cover parts of Lake Kyoga and Albert. According to water and fisheries experts, the giant Salvinia Molesta is worse than the water hyacinth.
