Illegal Loggers Break into Kitgum District Yard, Attempt to Steal Impounded Logs

Suspected illegal loggers on Tuesday night broke into the Kitgum district works department parking yard and attempted to steal impounded logs.

It’s reported that the loggers came at around midnight into the district yard where a consignment of impounded timber was kept and loaded five pieces of Africanna Afzellia logs onto a crane mounted truck. But, they were intercepted before driving out of the yard, by a team of police that was tipped about the plot, through the area Resident District Commissioner William Komakech.

According to Komakech, their vehicles which include, the crane mounted truck registration numbers UAF 422B and another trailer registration number UBB 826X / UAL 210X have since been impounded while three other suspects, whom he declined to name are now held in police custody.

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Cue out….keme ki cik.”//

Solomon Ochola Olii, a transporter revealed that he was contacted by a business partner identified as Jackson Komakech who purports to be the owner of the logs and he was loading them on his trailer destined for Kampala.

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Cue out…..but it will go.”//

The Kitgum district forest officer Martin Anywar says the five pieces of logs were part of over 15 other logs that were impounded by the district in an enforcement of a council resolution and cabinet directive that banned dealing in the endangered tree species in Northern Uganda.

In 2019, cabinet, through the Ministry of Water and Environment banned the cutting, transportation and sale of the endangered Africanna Afzellia locally referred to as beyo, the shea nut tree species at their products in the region. Anywar says the impounded logs in question had been earmarked for disposal and the district was in process of securing a court order to dispose of the timber as a deterrent to perpetrators encouraging the vice.

The Kitgum District Police Commander Keith Tommy Eyaku says a case of criminal trespass has been registered by the district forest department and once investigations are concluded the file will be sanctioned to the courts of law.