MITYANA � �I eat dead people.� Those words were spoken yesterday by Mr James Kityo, one of three suspects held by police over cannibalism and possible murder. Kityo, 32; Mr Rogers Kitumba, 26; and Ms Harriet Namboga, 25, were arrested by police on Sunday after a tip off from residents of Kinvunikidde village in Buye Kikundu parish, about 2km north of Mityana town. �They are in police custody, we are yet to charge them,� the officer in charge of Mityana Police Station, Mr Tarquins Alawy, said as they exhumed the trio�s victims. A woman�s body sliced at the heart, several decomposing body parts heaped in a sack, a human skull and bones were exhumed as horrified residents looked on. The LCI Chairman, Mr Leonard Kasibante, said residents had on Sunday razed the suspects� house and about 30 small structures each about a metre high, many of them containing human remains. The residents braved a heavy downpour yesterday to witness the exhumation and bay for the blood of the suspects as police and the army guarded them. The villagers alleged that the suspects are also involved in sorcery and witchcraft. Several items from their shrine � including bark cloth, cowrie shells, calabashes and bones lay about in the compound. Namboga said she has only eaten two bodies, including that of an acquaintance. �They are my brothers,� she said referring to the other two suspects. �One time I visited after they had cooked a person and they gave me some of the meat. We also ate a woman called Betty Nakazzi who used to come here.� Kityo said he is also a night dancer (omusezi) who usually gets possessed by his ancestors� spirits. Mityana RDC Margaret Kivumbi was horrified. �I have been hearing about night dancers all my life but I have never seen something like this.� All three relatives confessed they eat dead bodies.
Police arrest 3 suspected cannibals
By Henry H. Ssali
May 4, 2004
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
Sorcery, cannibalism cast spell over village
By Henry H. Ssali
May 4, 2004
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MITYANA - The apparent end began on Sunday morning. Ms Norah Namutebi complained to the LCI chairman of Kinvunikidde village of ill health after fellow residents James Kityo and Rogers Kitumba had threatened her with death if she did not pay them their 'consultation fee'. Namutebi, who The Monitor could not find for an interview, reportedly had been consulting the two witchdoctors over two months and they had asked for Shs 500,000 in payment. She told them that she did not have the money but her only valuable possession was a piece of land in the same village. But the piece of land also belonged to her children, and therefore she could not give it away. The witchdoctors told her that she either pays their money or her life was in danger. Then she started having ailments and contacted the LCs saying the witchdoctors had threatened her. The LCs then swung into ation. "Yesterday [Sunday] we called an LC meeting, which resolved to search their premises to see how they manage to make people sick," LC I Chairman Leonard Kasibante told The Monitor yesterday. The council contacted Mityana RDC Margaret Kivumbi who gave them army men to go search the premises. "Just as we had started, we saw a skull and became suspicious," Kasibante said. By this time residents were gathering and were in for more shock when decomposing body parts were found heaped in a sack and hidden under one of about 30 small brick structures around the compound. The residents ran amok and razed the house and the small structures each about a metre high, many of them containing human bones. "I received a call that people were about to lynch the three suspects [including a woman] so I sent a police patrol car, which rescued them," the Officer in Charge of Mityana Police Station, Mr Tarquins Alawy, said. The Monitor arrived at the gruesome scene yesterday morning. Despite the heavy downpour, hundreds of residents awaited a major search of the entire premises. Confession She is the third suspect. Ms Harriet Namboga, 25, told The Monitor that she has eaten only two people! Mr Kityo and Mr Kitumba are her brothers and she lives nearby. She said the first time she ate human flesh she found when her brothers had already prepared the dish and they offered her some of it, to which she didn't object. The second person she ate was her acquaintance called Betty Nakazzi. However, she denied that they had killed the woman. She died of natural causes sometime earlier in the year. "On their advice, I went to where we had buried her remains and I prayed to the ancestors so that her spirit does not haunt me," she added. Asked by one of the cops why she ate human flesh with all the goats and chicken around, she remained silent. RDC visits RDC Kivumbi arrived on the scene with army men and they shoved the crowd further away. A while later, a police patrol car approached the compound and Kityo, donning black trousers and an orange shirt that looked more like a blouse, was dragged off to help the police in exhuming the bodies. By this time a body of a woman buried about a metre below the ground had been discovered. The body looked freshly buried and was wrapped in a pink cloth. "We got her from Ssekanyonyi [a nearby village], Kityo said. Bones, cowrie shells, calabashes, and several bark cloth balls were littered all over the place. A while later another patrol car brought Kitumba and the brothers helped police locate any other bodies. They found none. But together they exhumed the pink-clothed woman's body as horrified residents looked on. Accusations fly Then the accusations began. Villagers said the brothers are linked to the disappearance of a 7-year-old child about eight months ago. "He is the one who went with the child," Kityo accused his brother, who claimed the car was loaded with beer. Another resident, Mr Matia Wasswa, claimed the two men are responsible for the disappearance of his niece who used to live with him in 2001. "She was my sister's child and she used to stay with me," he said. "They deserve to die," residents shouted. A neighbour who requested anonymity alleged that the witchdoctors have a racket with the neighbouring Ssekanyonyi village and that several cars usually park at the duo's shrine. "They must be working for some rich people," he said. He claimed that when the issue of the lost 7-year-old came up last year, a rich man's wife on the village put Shs 500,000 on the head of anyone who talked about it. "It's a mysterious village," one of them said. |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
The results of a 600 year history or the madness of fundamental change? Have Ugandans all gone mad? What happened to the "civilizing" effects of colonisation?
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