Kyotera Victims of Election Abductions Flee Homes For Safety

Five of eighteen people who had been abducted from Kasaali town council in Kyotera district ahead of the January general elections fled their homes in the months after they were released from detention and are again missing. 

  The abduction victims who are largely youthful supporters of the opposition went missing on 08th January this year, after they were picked from their respective homes by unknown persons suspected to be from government security organs. 

Although the victims returned home later in March, some of them did not settle down in their original homes and have since fled the area for unknown places.

  Sulait Kyambadde one of the victims of the Kyotera political abductions says they lost contact with some of their colleagues shortly after they were released.

He says that on return, they were greatly traumatized by the experiences they went through while in detention and that some of them could have since chosen to go into hiding as a result of fear. 

 

//Cue in; (Luganda) “tetufunangako communication….. //

Cue out; ….ba mbega baayo.”// 

Besides, Kyambadde adds that some of the victims are still struggling with health-related complications he attributes to the horrible torture experiences they went through. 

  Up to now, most of the victims cannot freely open up about what happened to them in the detention centres they were taken to after they were abducted. 

This according to Kyambadde is a result of great fear inflicted onto them by their captors before setting them free, adding that this has also partly frustrated their efforts of pursuing justice through the courts of law.

 

//Cue in: “tetufinangayo kitongole….//

Cue out;….nti ngende.”//

The victims were dropped in different parts of Kyotera district in the early hours of Tuesday 23rd of March this year after they had spent 73 days in detention.

   

But Jane Kyomugisha, a resident of Kyakonda ward, Nabisasa Sub county also in Kyotera district says her brother who was also kidnapped in a similar circumstance in January is yet return, adding that this might have scared some of the victims to flee the area for their safety. 

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