Two die in Uganda riot
Hundreds arrested
Rioters setting fire to roadblocks in Kampala yesterday clashed with police firing tear gas and live rounds, leaving two dead, scores injured and several hundred people arrested.
The riots come one day after opposition leader Kizza Besigye was attacked with tear gas and had his car smashed by police who arrested him for the fourth time this month.
Ugandan authorities said they had arrested 360 people over yesterday’s riots as police “restored law and order”.
Internal Affairs Minister Kirunda Kivejinja said the police force “within its constitutional mandate restored law and order” removing road blocks and “disengaging crowds” after the riots.
He refused to comment on the use of live rounds by security forces.
“That one we will have to investigate,” he said.
The Ugandan Red Cross said two people died from gunshot wounds and that 120 others are hospitalised around Kampala, around a dozen of them with gunshot wounds.
“Two people have been shot and died,” Red Cross spokeswoman Catherine Ntabadde told AFP.Mr Besigye’s arrest on Thursday came as he took part in a protest against rising food and fuel prices. A series of such protests this month have left five people dead.Some Kampala residents linked yesterday’s riots to the treatment meted out to Mr Besigye during his arrest, which was retransmitted on television.
“It is because Besigye was handled so badly during the arrest,” said Robert Ssekandi, 41, a motorcycle taxi driver in downtown Kampala.
“How can they treat a human being like that? That is why we needed to take action,” Mr Ssekandi said.
Mr Besigye was at Entebbe airport outside Kampala last night after being refused permission to fly to Nairobi or Johannesburg for treatment after his tear gas ordeal on Thursday, one of his aides said.
Police said rioters using scrap and burning tyres had set up road blocks around a market area in the centre of the capital, drawing tear gas fire from a deployment of police and military police. The rioting quickly spread to several suburbs, three towns outside the capital and Mbale, a town in the east.
According to the Ugandan Red Cross, five people have died nationwide this month in violence.Food and fuel prices have soared in the eastern African country recently, with Museveni blaming inflation on meteorological and global economic factors, but protestors see it as a result of bad governance.