Kampala’s Worst Unrest in a Decade

At least 19 people have been killed in Uganda over two days as security forces try to quell protests triggered by the arrest of presidential candidate Bobi Wine. Young people burned tyres and blockaded streets in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, on Thursday, and soldiers fanned out across the city with armoured vehicles, a day after the arrest of Wine, a popular reggae singer who is the leading challenger to President Yoweri Museveni in forthcoming elections. Images posted on social media showed police in Kampala firing indiscriminately at people in buildings overlooking the protests and unidentifiable men in plainclothes, believed to be security personnel, firing automatic weapons. More than 350 people were arrested, police said. The exact death toll in the unrest, which spread to other cities during the day, is uncertain. Kampala’s main mortuary reported receiving 19 bodies, with postmortems revealing the causes of death as gunshots, suffocation from teargas and injuries sustained by a “hit and run” car accident, the Observer, a local newspaper, reported.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN