Tag: Uganda

The trial of Kwoyelo: Fate of LRA rebel commander divides northern Uganda | Armed Groups

Gulu, Uganda – At a market in Gulu, northern Uganda, women spread tropical fruit on plastic sheets, calling out to passing customers. The sun is blinding, and the air is thick with the chatter of bargaining shoppers.

Distant are the days when children used to sleep under the same market stall awnings, after marching grimly from the surrounding villages to this small city each night to avoid capture by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Fearsome rebels commanded by Joseph Kony, the LRA dominated the region, capturing young children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves, between 1987 and 2006 before being pushed out of Uganda and into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR).

Not far from this lively market is Gulu’s High Court, which will soon play host to the trial of Thomas Kwoyelo, now in his 50s, the first LRA commander to be tried for his crimes in Uganda.

Kwoyelo was abducted as a teenager walking to school in the early years of conflict. He went on to serve in the LRA for some 20 years. Taking on the alias Latoni, the boy soldier became a senior commander and was responsible for treating wounded fighters.

He was captured during a battle in DRC in 2009. Brought home nursing a bullet wound in his stomach and without shoes, he spent the next 14 years in detention as attempts to try him dragged on.

In April 2023, more than a decade after he was jailed, the prosecution wrapped up its argument against Kwoyelo, with the defence now gearing up to make its case.

But his controversial trial has raised alarm among human rights and monitoring organisations, who say his lengthy detention has made it impossible for him to get justice.

Meanwhile, survivors of the conflict in northern Uganda assert that Kwoyelo, the first person from the armed group to be tried in the country, should not be on trial at all. They want him forgiven and allowed to come home as other LRA captives, and commanders who allegedly held higher ranks, were allowed to do so.

Rebel uprising

Kony, a former altar boy, crafted his fighting force from the remnants of another rebel group, hoping to topple President Yoweri Museveni and rule the country according to the Ten Commandments.

Clashes between the rebels and the Ugandan army killed some 10,000 people, with the LRA often turning their weapons on civilians and forcing children to become fighters.

Among them was Margret, who spoke to Al Jazeera using only her first name. Before the war, she enjoyed going to school, helping out on the family farm, and fishing in a nearby river.

In 1991, she was taken along with 15 girls from her village in an attack that killed her father and the men of their village. The new recruits were tied together with ropes and forced to carry looted goods. Margret, only 12 years old at the time, was immediately made the wife of an LRA commander.

The girl was taught to handle a weapon and transformed into a fighter. After two years with the rebels, she tried to escape, only to be taken again.

“There were terrible beatings and no one to turn to,” Margret said of her time in captivity.

These mass abductions pushed leaders from northern Uganda’s Acholi ethnic group to advocate for an amnesty policy that would allow LRA fighters who gave up their weapons to return home, free from repercussions. This policy was signed into law in 2000.

“Our children are innocent because they were forcefully conscripted into combat,” said Okello Okuna, a spokesperson for Ker Kwaro Acholi, a traditional kingdom for northern Uganda, headquartered in Gulu.

“A number of them returned home and they’re living now peacefully amidst us without any reprisal, without any reprimand [and] without any arrest,” he added.

On the local radio station Mega FM, John “Lacambel” Oryema spent the war interviewing repatriated LRA fighters and playing peace songs, urging the remaining rebels to lay down their weapons and come home again.

“I used to say, brothers, sisters, let us all unite and make sure we forgive and forget,” Oryema told Al Jazeera.

This approach ran in contrast to international interest in seeing LRA leaders tried for their crimes.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights decried Uganda’s Amnesty Act as a violation of international law, standing in the way of accountability for war crimes.

In 2003, a year after the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague was founded, Uganda referred the cases of five high-ranking LRA commanders to the court, making them the first people it indicted.

Kony, the LRA leader, has remained at large. Cases against another of his top three commanders at the ICC have been closed down, with the accused presumed dead. But in 2021, Domonic Ongwen, another boy soldier, was convicted by the court in the Hague and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Tenuous peace

Margret gave birth to two children while in LRA captivity, and rose to the rank of sergeant. But when Uganda launched an operation against the rebels in 2004, she took her chances, fleeing into the hills with other women. In Gulu, she received amnesty and began, slowly, to rebuild her life.

Senior commanders also benefitted from the same law, renouncing rebellion, and returning home.

Charles, who like other ex-LRA recruits spoke using only his first name, was captured at a young age.

He gave few details about his time in the LRA, other than confirming he held a high rank and pointing to visible marks of conflict on his body, including an amputated leg.

“I have undergone all categories of military training,” Charles, who once hoped to become a lawyer, said bluntly. “That is how my dream was diverted and all of a sudden, I became a soldier.”

Like Margret, he received amnesty and was able to return home after 17 years of war.

Kwoyelo tried and failed to benefit from the same amnesty policy after being captured in 2009. It was originally granted by the constitutional court, but an appeal went all the way up to Uganda’s Supreme Court, which denied Kwoyelo’s request for clemency and sent his case back to the International Crimes Division (ICD) of Uganda’s High Court.

The ICD was established in 2006 as a condition of peace talks held with the LRA in Juba with the intent of trying the rebel’s top brass in Uganda. So far, Kwoyelo is the only one to face charges.

Former abductees have contended he shouldn’t be on trial at all.

“There are so many people I know that have done serious bad things that are here at home that have never been tried,” Margret told Al Jazeera. “Kwoyelo should be given amnesty so that he can be reintegrated with his family, so he has a normal life just like any of us who came back.

Agnes, who also spoke using her first name, agreed.

She was abducted by the LRA as a girl and forced to marry a commander in captivity. She recalled Kwoyelo nursing the gunshots she sustained in battle and working to gather food for the sick.

Seeing him on trial is unfair and he looked old and depressed, she told Al Jazeera.

“After all the good things that Kwoyelo did to support us … he’s not in a position to support his family or go back to his mother and his siblings,” she said.

Charles, the ex-LRA officer, was reluctant to give an opinion about a case currently before court, but eager to paint Kwoyelo – whom he referred to as his junior – in a neutral light.

“He is a normal person,” Charles said simply.

He hasn’t bothered to attend trial sessions as Agnes has, but tunes his radio to listen for news of Kwoyelo.

Others who returned from captivity or lived through the war told a different story, describing Kwoyelo as a cruel man who must answer for his crimes.

“He was a rude person and a fighter,” said Jackline, who is also being identified by only her first name. She was born in LRA captivity and accused Kwoyelo of killing her father as punishment for failing to follow orders.

Even Oryema, who spoke about forgiveness on the radio, told Al Jazeera that Kwoyelo should suffer some retribution for his crimes.

“He had very little peace in his mind,” Oryema said of a visit he made to Kwoyelo, while trying to persuade LRA recruits to return home. “He was full of revenge.”

Charles served as a high-ranking officer in the LRA. He was wounded in battle many times, including losing his leg [Sophie Neiman/Al Jazeera]

Child soldier in court

It is amid these tensions over peace, and accountability that the Kwoyelo trial is taking place.

After 14 years, judges confirmed 78 (PDF) of the prosecution’s charges against Kwoyelo in December, including rape, murder, and the forcible recruitment of other child soldiers.

The defence plans to argue his innocence, asserting he was a victim of the war himself.

“He was abducted as a child and trained,” said Charles Dalton Opwonya, one of Kwoyelo’s lawyers. “The government failed to protect him.”

Long delays in the case – including the closure of the courts during COVID-19 – have caused funding shortages, with the court only putting on sessions when there is money to hold them, observers said.

The International Crimes Division of the High Court, where Kwoyelo is being tried, is intended to act as an equivalent to the ICC under the court’s doctrine of complementarity, which declares cases should be sent to the ICC only when the national court system is lacking.

Building that capacity is difficult and the wait is particularly hard on victims, who have spent more than a decade in limbo.

“People are tired. People are fatigued. People are anxious. People are even giving up,” said Henry Komakech Kilama. He acts as a lawyer for the victims, in a position modelled after the ICC.

The next session in Kwoyelo’s case is expected to take place on February 19, and lawyers like Kilama hope the case will be wrapped up before the end of the year.

But prior postponements have also raised concerns from human rights experts, who worry about the accused as much as his alleged victims.

“If you look at it objectively, justice delayed is justice denied. When you put someone on trial for over a decade, whatever the outcome of that trial is, it doesn’t [have] meaning,” said Irene Anying, director of Avocats Sans Frontières in Uganda, which has monitored the trial since it began.

In a January statement, Human Rights Watch also urged Uganda to bring the trial to a speedy conclusion.

Margret was abducted by the LRA.
Margret was abducted by the LRA as a young girl. Returning to a normal life is difficult, and it is particularly hard to find work [Sophie Neiman/Al Jazeera]

Hunting Kony

With the defence now preparing its arguments in the Kwoyelo case in Uganda, the ICC has simultaneously moved forward with a separate confirmation of charges against Kony in absentia in the Hague.

“It brings confidence to the victims who have been waiting for justice, which Joseph Kony has evaded for over 18 years,” Maria Kamara, an outreach coordinator for the ICC, said from the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor, has also asserted that confirming the charges against Kony will make it easier and quicker to hold a trial in the Hague should he be caught.

The United States Department of State has offered a five million dollar reward for information that might lead to Kony’s arrest. But past attempts to hunt him down have failed.

The administration of Barack Obama funnelled eight million dollars into efforts to capture Kony between 2011 and 2017, providing logistical support to Ugandan troops, before Donald Trump shut down the mission shortly after entering office.

The LRA is now weakened and divided, expected to number about 100 to 2,000 soldiers, hiding out in jungles between the DRC and the CAR, struggling to survive.

Starting over

In Gulu, and across northern Uganda, life in once war-torn areas continues.

Coming back from the LRA was difficult, Margret said. Most of her family had died and she was not sure how to make a life for herself.

“There [was] no one to go to, no source of livelihood or income whatsoever,” she told Al Jazeera.

Despite receiving amnesty, many former LRA members face discrimination.

Margret has since joined support groups comprising other women who survived LRA captivity, but she said it is difficult to make enough money to send her children to school.

Charles also scrapes by operating a village savings organisation whose membership includes former rebels and civilians, in the hopes of fighting stigma and poverty at once.

Uganda’s parliament passed a transitional justice policy to support survivors of the war in 2019, but has yet to implement its key tenets.

Kilima, the victims’ lawyer, hoped that both a court process and more traditional methods could help bring permanent peace and stability to Uganda.

“We must look for more than one solution – not the ICC alone, not amnesty alone, not transitional justice alone,” he said. “We must look at different options. Everyone must try to contribute to the dialogue about peace.”

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Uganda’s first Oscar-nominated film tells story of Bobi Wine persecution | Arts and Culture

Kampala, Uganda – This January, when Bobi Wine learned that the film documenting his 2021 Ugandan presidential bid had been nominated for an Academy Award, he was hiding from the police.

The swaggering popstar-turned-opposition leader had been on the run for five days, not sleeping or showering. This was after security forces cordoned off his home in response to his calls for protests over the poor road conditions in Uganda as the Non-Aligned Movement’s summit held in the capital Kampala.

Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, was shocked by the nomination. “I screamed,” he said. “If there was any police officer nearby, I would have been arrested immediately.”

The nomination of Bobi Wine: The People’s President for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars marks the first time a Ugandan film has earned recognition from the Academy Awards.

But while it has led to celebration within Wine’s camp, the film is also a surreal reminder of the many challenges the 41-year-old politician has had to confront in his relatively short political career.

Filmed over five years, it begins with singer Wine’s election to the Ugandan parliament in 2017 and shows his meteoric rise through politics, becoming the face of a vibrant youth movement.

In impassioned speeches, the newly minted politician decries a constitutional amendment abolishing presidential age limits. But despite his opposition, the bill passed and allowed incumbent Yoweri Museveni, who seized power in 1986, to run for another term.

Another scene follows Wine through the Kamwookya slum where he grew up, as he sings of freedom and calls on people to rise.

A year later, the documentarians are with as Wine as he recovers from torture and a failed assassination attempt, briefly travelling to the United States for treatment.

“Museveni used to be my favourite revolutionary,” he tells filmmakers in a car rolling through downtown Washington, DC. “I would really love to have a frank and honest conversation with him.”

A disputed election

A desire for change propelled Wine to challenge Museveni for the presidency in what he hoped would be Uganda’s first democratic election, excitedly announcing his candidacy shortly after returning home in July 2019.

But the result was a bloody and contested vote as the ruling party clamped down on the opposition. Even before the election, at least 54 people were shot after riots broke out following Wine’s temporary detention in the city of Jinja in November 2020. Other supporters were jailed or attacked on the campaign trail.

In the film, the camera zooms in as Wine dodges bullets and teargas, wavering only when the documentarians have to duck for cover themselves.

“I was arrested a few times. I was interrogated,” said Moses Bwayo, a Ugandan journalist and one of the film’s directors. In the final days of the campaign, he was shot in the face with a rubber bullet.

Still, Bwayo kept recording. “All these threats and everything that was happening really emboldened me to tell this story, and carry the task forward,” he said. As election day approached, he moved into Wine’s home.

Afterwards, Bwayo filmed Wine and his wife Barbie Kyagulanyi listening to a radio broadcast announcing Museveni as victor. Their faces are numb with shock and disbelief.

Wine called for more protests over the election results, but large-scale demonstrations never materialised following a brutal campaign and disappointing result.

Deciding he was no longer safe in Uganda, Bwayo captured a final scene of Bobi Wine once again singing songs of freedom in Kamwookya.

Then, Bwayo escaped Uganda with his wife.

“We fled like we were going on a small trip,” he said. “We landed in the United States, and we applied for political asylum.”

They are still awaiting a decision.

Ugandan opposition politician Bobi Wine stands near a mural of an associate killed during police raids in December 2020, in Kampala, Uganda [Sophie Neiman/Al Jazeera]

Documenting repression

This week, Wine told Al Jazeera that the film is a documentation of all he suffered and the challenges still facing his homeland.

“We’ve been able to present the reality in Uganda, uncensored and unedited, to the international community,” the opposition leader said.

“It showcases the brutality of the Museveni regime, but also the resilience of the Ugandan people in pushing back against impunity, against injustice,” added David Lewis Rubongoya, secretary-general of Wine’s National Unity Platform political party.

The threat of harsh repression still hangs over the Ugandan population, analysts assert. But Museveni, who has now been in power for some 38 years, is becoming increasingly paranoid as another election looms on the horizon.

“[Violence] may have succeeded in the short run, in terms of preventing … a wide protest movement from emerging after the polls,” Michael Mutyaba, a Ugandan academic at SOAS University of London, said of the 2021 vote. “But if you look at it in the long term, I don’t think it succeeded.”

“What it did was expose the regime more to international criticism and reveal things that it had maybe successfully concealed for a long time,” Mutyaba told Al Jazeera.

‘Our story’

Meanwhile, Bwayo and Christopher Sharp, the film’s other director, trimmed 4,000 hours of footage to just a few hours of runtime

The documentary debuted at the 79th Venice Film Festival in 2022. It was then acquired by National Geographic, which supported a theatrical release last year. The Oscar nomination followed this year.

The filmmakers hope their work will bring renewed attention to Uganda and its citizens.

“We’re fooling ourselves in the West, and we’re being very disrespectful to the people of Uganda, to pretend that they’re living in a democracy, that those elections are anything other than a sham,” said Sharp, who is also one of the documentary’s producers.

For Wine, the film is a lifeline.

“The more our story is out there, the more we are able to live and see the sun the following day,” he told Al Jazeera.

On Friday, which also marks the anniversary of Museveni taking power, Wine and his followers attempted to mount the first public screening of the film in Uganda. Security personnel deployed heavily along the road, intimidating people going to see the film.

Attending with two of his children, Wine sang again, telling supporters everything would someday be alright.

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How relevant is the Non-Aligned Movement? | Politics

As the organisation meets in Uganda, how big a role can its 120 member countries play on the global stage?

The Non-Aligned Movement was established almost 70 years ago during the Cold War era of bilateralism – far removed from the world we see now.

As the organisation meets in Uganda, how big a role can its 120 members play on the global stage?

And how much influence do they have in creating a more multilateral system?

Presenter: Nastasya Tay

Guests:

Nicholas Sengoba – The Daily Monitor newspaper columnist

Endy Bayuni – Former editor, The Jakarta Post newspaper

Dima Al-Khatib – Director, United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation

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‘I don’t want him to die this way’: Uganda’s hidden disabled children | Features

Namazala, Jinja District, Uganda – The home of Joy Nangobi sits on the edge of Namazala village. Its front is open to the main road and thoroughfare that carries trucks loaded with sugar cane harvested from the fields surrounding it. Its back yard is small and fenced by the tall, dense cane. Two goats sit idle in the yard as three neighbourhood children play around them. Laundry hangs neatly drying over a wood stack beneath an overcast mid-morning sky.

From a small outside kitchen, Joy slowly tugs her 20-year-old daughter Katherine “Kat” Muwunguzi by the wrist across the hard clay, Kat’s knees grinding the sharp rocky earth to the storeroom she now sleeps in.

The walls are covered in a thin layer of red dust, the floor scattered with wood chips beneath a steel bed rusted and lacking a mattress. A filthy, tattered blanket is the only barrier between Kat’s lithe body, the cold night air and malaria.

Joy wrenches Kat up to the bed’s edge, her arms and head flailing. Kat’s legs are twisted unnaturally beneath her as she sits on its edge, her smile childlike as she puts her hand inside her mouth. She is instructed not to move and Joy leaves the room and shuts the door behind her, to resume cooking the midday meal.

The sleeping quarters of 20-year-old Katherine Muwunguzi who lives with an undiagnosed intellectual disability and is frequently violent towards her mother, Joy Nangobi [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera]

Kat lives with an intellectual disability and what is assumed by her mother to be epilepsy.

Her intellectual disability has never formally been diagnosed, she can’t talk and is prone to acts of violence.

“When we went to a government facility [hospital], that was when they told us she has mental issues and to go away.” Joy’s despair is clear as she explains through an interpreter: “At one point when in the process of taking her to the hospital she would bite my husband seriously. At one point, he was even forced to throw her after a strong bite.”

The stigma of people with intellectual disabilities is fuelled by a cultural belief that they are ‘cursed’

Kat has a four-year-old son, Edwin, though she isn’t aware that she is the boy’s mother. When Kat began to show at seven months and she was confirmed to be carrying Edwin, their next-door neighbour disappeared. Joy and her husband Robert Balina, workers on the sugar cane plantations, suspect their next-door neighbour raped Kat in the sooty outdoor kitchen while they slept inside. He has never been charged.

This family dynamic means that Joy raises Edwin, but not as her own. She is determined to teach Edwin that Kat is his mother.

Joy Nangobi, the mother of Katherine Muwunguzi, becomes emotional as she recounts her daughter’s story [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera]

“We are trying our level best to try and create a relationship between the child and his mother, but she doesn’t have anything that she cares about given her mental situation.

“We always tell this child [Edwin] that no matter the condition of your mother, she is your mother. Every time we try to ask him, just to find out, if he remembers who his mother is, and if you ask him, he says – ‘the one who is mentally disturbed is my mother’.”

Kat is among an estimated one in four adults with a psychosocial or intellectual disability in Uganda to have been the victim of sexual assault. But rape is only one of a raft of human rights abuses this minority face due to their vulnerability.

The stigma of people with intellectual disabilities is fuelled by a cultural belief that they are “cursed”.

Restrictive practices such as restraint, tethering and forced seclusion are common. In Uganda, people living with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities are often considered a burden on society.

While NGOs and local experts in the field of intellectual disability cite a lack of education and awareness as being the major hurdles to overcoming the cultural taboo around such disabilities within communities, they also say the government has failed to prioritise funding.

But a small corner of society has taken up the challenge and is providing a sliver of hope to those like Joy and Kat.

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Non-Aligned Movement criticises Israel’s war on Gaza at Kampala summit | Israel War on Gaza News

Foreign ministers within the 120-member bloc have adopted a resolution at the summit, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza..

Leaders of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries have denounced Israel’s military campaign on the Gaza Strip and demanded an immediate ceasefire during a summit of the 120-member bloc.

“Since October 7, we have witnessed one of the cruellest genocidal acts ever to be recorded by history,” Cuba’s vice president, Salvador Valdes Mesa, said in a speech to delegates on Friday in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

“How can the Western countries, who claim to be so civilised, justify the murder of women and children in Gaza, the indiscriminate bombings of hospitals and schools and deprivation of access to safe water and food?” he questioned.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union Commission, called for an immediate end to what he called the “unjust war against the Palestinian people”.

Nearly all African countries belong to the NAM, comprising nearly half its members, but its membership includes countries around the globe, from India and Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Chile, Peru and Colombia.

The organisation was founded in 1965 by countries opposed to joining either of the two major Cold War-era military and political blocs and is the largest global bloc after the UN. It is expected to grant membership to South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, on Friday.

Uganda currently heads NAM after a handover to President Yoweri Museveni from Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliye, the outgoing chairperson, at the start of the summit. Museveni will chair the organisation until 2027.

The Kampala summit, which began on January 15, runs until January 20.

Dozens of heads of state and senior officials of NAM members are attending the gathering, including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, Algerian Prime Minister Nadir Larbaoui and his Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, counterpart Russel Dlamini.

‘Summit of solidarity’

Riyadh Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, has called the summit a “summit of solidarity”.

Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from Kampala, said UN reforms and other issues globally including the ongoing war in Gaza are on the agenda at the summit.

Already, foreign ministers within NAM have adopted a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and unhindered humanitarian assistance for Palestinians caught in the conflict. The resolution also supports South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

“The foreign ministers struggled to find the right language to address the killings in Gaza, but agreed genocide is now a legal issue that needs to be decided by the International Court of Justice,” said Soi.

Israel launched its offensive on Gaza after an attack by the armed group Hamas on October 7 that killed about 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials. Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 24,700 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza.

Israel has said it is acting in self-defence and rejected the accusations of genocide.

Speaking at the summit, Ramaphosa said the war in Gaza had demonstrated the UN’s inadequacy, particularly its Security Council, where the United States has vetoed several resolutions critical of Israel.

“We should establish a system of global governance that is fair and equitable, and has the capacity to respond to the needs of all persons in situations of threat and harm,” the South African president said.

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Ugandan athlete Benjamin Kiplagat found dead in Kenya | Athletics News

Kiplagat’s body was found with a knife wound to his neck, suggesting he was murdered, according to the local police.

Ugandan athlete Benjamin Kiplagat has been found dead in Kenya, police say, with Uganda’s Daily Monitor and other media outlets in Kenya reporting he had been stabbed to death.

The Kenyan-born Kiplagat, 34, had represented Uganda internationally in the 3,000-metre steeplechase, including at several Olympic Games and World Championships.

His body was discovered in a car on the outskirts of Eldoret, a town situated in the Rift Valley, on Saturday night.

Eldoret is known for being home to numerous athletes who undergo training in the high-altitude region.

“An investigation has been launched and officers are on the ground pursuing leads,” local police commander Stephen Okal told reporters in Eldoret on Sunday.

He said Kiplagat’s body had a deep knife wound to his neck, suggesting he was stabbed.

‘Shocked and saddened’: condolences pour in

“World Athletics is shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Benjamin Kiplagat,” the global athletics governing body said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.

“We send our deepest condolences to his friends, family, teammates and fellow athletes. Our thoughts are with them all at this difficult time.”

Peter Ogwang, state minister for sports in Uganda, expressed similar sentiments on X.

“I send my deepest condolences to his family, Ugandans, and the entire East Africa for the loss of such a budding athlete who has on several occasions represented us on the international scene,” he said.

Media reports said Kiplagat had been training in the Eldoret area before going to Uganda to participate in athletics competitions.

Kiplagat, whose running career spanned about 18 years, won the silver medal in the 3,000-metre steeplechase at the 2008 World Junior Championships and bronze at the Africa Championships in 2012.

He made the semi-finals of the event at the 2012 Olympic Games in London and competed in Rio in 2016.

His death follows the killing in October 2021 of Kenyan distance running star Agnes Tirop, who was found stabbed to death at the age of 25 in her home in Iten, a training hub near Eldoret.

Her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, went on trial for her murder last month. The 43-year-old has denied the charge against him and was freed on bail just before the trial opened.



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Five people feared dead in suspected ADF attack in Uganda | ISIL/ISIS News

The ADF has carried out multiple attacks in Uganda and neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo in the last decade.

At least five people were killed, including a local leader, after suspected rebels from an armed group allied to ISIL (ISIS) attacked an area in western Uganda late on Monday, the area legislator told Reuters on Tuesday.

On Monday, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) attacked Kyabandara parish in Kamwenge district in Western Uganda at about 10pm (19:00 GMT), the lawmaker, Cuthbert Abigaba, said.

The attackers then killed a local councillor whom they found in a small roadside restaurant she operated alongside four of her clients who had just sat down for a meal, Abigaba said.

“After the killing, they burnt the restaurant and also proceeded and looted items from nearby shops before fleeing,” he said.

The deputy spokesperson for Uganda’s military, Deo Akiiki, confirmed the attack and said they would give details later.

The ADF was formed as an anti-Kampala rebel group in the mid-1990s and initially battled the government of President Yoweri Museveni from bases in the Rwenzori mountains.

After its formation, the group was eventually routed by the Ugandan army, with remnants fleeing into eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo where they have since orchestrated deadly attacks with thousands of casualties in the last decade across both countries.

The ADF in 2019 pledged allegiance to ISIL, which has previously claimed responsibility for some of the ADF’s attacks.

Uganda launched a ground and air campaign against the ADF in the DR Congo in 2021. Museveni has said the operation has succeeded in killing a large number of rebels, including some commanders.

The group has continued to carry out attacks including on a school in Western Uganda in June in which dozens died and another that killed two foreign tourists and their Ugandan tour guide.

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‘Where is our future’: Uganda declares war on used clothing | Business and Economy

For nearly three decades, the chaotic, overcrowded Owino secondhand market in Uganda’s capital has been the cornerstone of Hadija Nakimuli’s life, helping the widowed shopkeeper build a house and raise 12 children.

But a potential government ban on the sale of used clothing threatens to sever this crucial lifeline for Nakimuli and tens of thousands of vendors like her.

“Where is our future if they stop secondhand clothes?” the 62-year-old asked, rummaging through her stash of underwear, dresses, shoes and bags.

Established in 1971, the sprawling market employs some 80,000 people, 70 percent of them women, according to Kampala city authorities.

“Other than students, my clients include ministers [and] members of parliament who call me to deliver clothes to their air-conditioned offices,” said Joseph Barimugaya, whose stall stocks menswear.

“This trade should not be tampered with. Everyone benefits, including the government, which gets taxes,” the father of four said.

Every day, hundreds of customers squeeze through the narrow alleys separating the makeshift wooden stalls, eager to grab a bargain.

Here, a secondhand Pierre Cardin blazer goes for 40,000 Ugandan shillings ($11), a fraction of the price of a new one.

“As a teacher, I earn less than 500,000 shillings [$131]. If I am to buy a new garment, it means I would spend all my salary on clothing,” Robert Twimukye, 27, said while shopping at Owino on a Saturday afternoon.

He is not alone.

Although there are no official figures available, the Uganda Dealers in Used Clothings and Shoes Association estimates that 16 million people – one in three Ugandans – wear used clothing.

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Sport Weekly: Child athletes on the joys and the perils of competing | Sports News

This week Al Jazeera covers issues for child athletes, Eritrea’s deserting footballers and scolded Pakistani cricketers.

Welcome to Al Jazeera’s Sport Weekly newsletter, which explores the intersection of sport with politics, culture and money. You can sign up here.

This week British Gymnastics introduced new rules limiting coaches from weighing athletes to tackle an issue “on the fringe of abuse”.

Gymnasts aged 10 or under cannot be weighed under the new regulations, while those between 10 to 18 can only be weighed with the consent of a parent or guardian. Those above the age of 18 can only be weighed with their consent.

British Gymnastics said the policy had been introduced to prevent practices around weighing that were causing distress and leading to issues such as eating disorders, anxiety and depression.

It follows the 2022 Whyte Review, which found “systemic” physical and emotional abuse in gymnastics.

Elite sports have also frequently been hit by reports of sexual abuse, doping, bullying and other misconduct in recent years – with young athletes the most vulnerable to abuse.

Meanwhile, children such as the nine-year-old skateboarder, Mazel Paris Alegado, continue to break records in major international events, which is reigniting debate around the risks, pressures and pitfalls that young competitors face in elite sport.

In 2022, at the age of 17, South African sprinter Viwe Jingqi became the world’s fastest under-18 female when she ran 100 metres in 11.24 seconds.

“Representing your country at such a young age is so amazing,” Jingqi told Al Jazeera.

But she said bullying and scrutiny over her appearance have left her feeling emotionally unstable, and that the pressures of competition can be brutal.

“Mentally, if you’re a kid and you lose it’s going to affect you a lot, so you need to be tough in every way.”

One parent spoke of the need to make sure his son had other interests outside sport to prevent burnout and support his wellbeing.

“If you are overly focused on one thing, which they are most of the time, it could have negative consequences,” he said.

Rob Koehler, the director general of Global Athlete, says athletes of Alegado’s age should never compete with adults, no matter how skilled they are, and that alternative competitions such as the Youth Olympic Games are safer spaces.

“These are formative years for a growing child and to place them in [an adult] environment during these development years is likely to cause harm.”

Read the full article here: ‘You need to be tough’: Child athletes make history, but at what cost?

Elsewhere this week:

  • A series of desertions by Eritrean players to escape mandatory military conscription has hit the country’s game.
  • Pakistan cricketers told to ‘prioritise country’ after poor World Cup.
  • Uganda make history by qualifying for first T20 World Cup at the expense of Zimbabwe and completing the 20-team lineup.

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A Crude Mistake? | Al Jazeera

People & Power investigates what major new oil projects in Uganda mean for the country, its people and the environment.

In this documentary, People & Power investigates what major new oil projects in Uganda mean for the country, its people and the environment.

As nations gather for COP28, one issue is expected to expose deep divisions between the Global North – largely responsible for the ravages of global warming – and the aspirations of developing countries in the South, who must deal with the consequences.

Can COP28 agree on a funding package to allow the South to both mitigate the damage and develop sustainably? And what could it mean for a country like Uganda, which is banking on major oil projects to create growth and prosperity, while facing criticism over the impact on the environment and human rights? Despite protests, drilling has commenced on two huge new oil fields on the banks of Lake Albert.

In 2023, final approval was granted for the construction of what will be the longest heated oil pipeline in the world, the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline. But will the people of Uganda gain any benefit from the controversial exploitation of their oil – and can any such profits be seen to balance out the environmental damage to the country?

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