Kenyan shot in Uganda school riot

A Kenyan student was on Sunday shot when Ugandan police opened fire on protesting pupils at an international school near Kampala. Five students are reported to have been injured during the incident in which police used live ammunition.

The Form Six student at Bugema Seventh Day Adventist School, identified as Wilmah Obega, is being treated at Mulago Hospital after sustaining injuries in the ribs.

A Sudanese, Ms Mariam Odiera, was shot in the chest and is also in hospital. Following the shootings, Uganda’s police boss Kale Kayihura ordered the arrest of the area police commander, the district officer in Charge of Criminal Investigations and five other officers.

The students were protesting at what they termed “failure by the administration to address our grievances”. Obega’s classmate, Henry Mwanzia, who spoke to the Nation by telephone, said police were called in after students broke windows.

“We are sorry that our officers opened fire on unarmed students. We have arrested those suspected to have done it and taken them to Kampala for screening,” the police boss said shortly after the injured students were driven to Kampala.

On Sunday, the students refused to sit their mock exams because they were angered by the arrest of the school’s headboy — also Kenyan — the previous night.

Following police intervention, hundreds of Kenyan students are said to have fled and are trying to get back home. The administration convened separate meetings for prefects, teachers and the students in which it was resolved that the grievances be addressed.

Mwanzia said trouble started on Friday night after students broke windows and brought down a gate. The school’s watchmen, who are armed with guns, fired in the air but the students pelted them with stones. Unrest broke afresh on Saturday night, and this time police whipped the students.

Reported by Fred Mukinda, Andrew Bagala and Dan Wandera