One woman’s lucky escape

Nineteen-year-old pregnant Brenda Nalwendo was allegedly shot in the stomach by police during a
walk-to-work campaign in Kajjansi but she is now recovering in hospital and did not lose her baby as well

Kampala

In Mulago Hospital Ward 3C lies 19-year old Brenda Nalwendo, who is recuperating from the pain of gunshot wounds inflicted on her by security personnel during a walk-to-work campaign in Kajjansi on Thursday. She has plasters on part of the left arm and abrasions on the mouth and below the chin.

Medical personnel at the hospital say she is now largely out of danger, able to discern what is going on and respond to a few inquiries. But Thursday, April 14, 2011 is a day she will live to remember as a day she cheated death by a whisker. The walk-to-work campaign, for her, was an incident in which she was to become collateral damage. “I left home at Bweya where I stay with my aunt and set off to meet my husband who was in Kibuye. He is a man who travels a lot and when he came back this time, he called me from Kibuye both to get more information about my antenatal condition and also to get me some money.

Getting to Kajjansi
I decided to take a boda boda to catch up with time but reaching Kajjansi fly-over, police were rounding up people. There was commotion and people were running in all directions. I stopped the boda boda man so that I could get off.”
She says as soon as she disembarked, she felt something hitting her arm. “Before I could know what was going on something hit my abdomen. I fell on the ground only to feel my intestines out. Good Samaritans and police lifted me and put me on a truck to here,” she narrates from her hospital bed in Mulago yesterday.

Apparently, unknown to her, she had been hit by gun shots. At Mulago Hospital she was taken straight to the theatre for operation. A bullet was reportedly dislodged from her tummy and on Friday morning, she was transferred from Ward 3B to 3C.
By the time the ordeal befell Nalwendo, her husband, Mr Nasser Walukagga, a businessman dealing in fridges, had apparently called her to Kibuye where he was servicing his vehicle. “She had called me and informed me that she was feeling some pain. So I wanted her to give me more information about her condition but I wanted also to give her some money,” Walukagga says. “As I was waiting, somebody called me and informed me that my wife had been shot at Kajjansi. I set off for Kajjansi, not knowing that she had been put on a police truck and taken to Mulago. “

Unfortunately, he did not find her beloved wife as she had already been taken to Mulago by the police. At Mulago he said it took time to get access to her because she was undergoing an operation in the theatre. Now that his fiancée’s life is no longer under threat, there remains one more problem to sort. “With that abdomen ripped open and sewn, it is like she has undergone an operation. The pregnancy will in a month’s time be due. The medical personnel are at a loss questioning whether she will be in position to push in labour. Debate is whether they should remove the baby and give special care until it matures or they live the pregnancy to mature.” It is a catch-22 situation for the real estate dealer.

“I am in a precarious situation. I had never made myself known to Brenda’s family. We were just planning an introduction on Easter Monday. My extreme fear is fatality befalling when her family does not know me,” he said. But much as he is still in pain, he wonders why the police would be hunting for him. “I was told police were looking for me last night. I haven’t known for what,” he says. But as one of these reporters was still probing the Nalwendo’s condition, the police spokesperson, Ms Judith Nabakooba, with some other unidentified security personnel, came in asking for her.

Government intervention
In a discourse with one of the medical personnel and Nalwendo’s mother Gertrude Nassuna, Ms Nabakooba was reported to have inquired what assistance was needed so that government would come in to help. “Yes I did visit. I was there to know the condition of the patient and what was needed. I found there a doctor and we talked. He said she (Brenda) was stable. The intestines had been put back and luckily the internal organs had not been damaged,” Ms Nabakoba said on Friday afternoon. She said the doctor had assured her that there were enough drugs needed to bring the patient back to normal.

Other victims
In Ward 3B Mulago Hospital are two other victims nursing serious injuries sustained in the Thursday demonstrations. One of the victims was hit with a baton in the eye while another was shot in the chest. “I was going to buy bulbs at Kasangati and found people moving with Dr Besigye while antiriot police were trying to chase them away. I tried to run off the road and police shot at me,” says Mr Geoffrey Kaboneka, 24. He said they were both put in the same ambulance with Besigye and rushed to hospital though he cannot recall how Besigye ended up at Kampala International Hospital.

In the ensuing fracas, Dr Besigye had a digit of his right hand broken after he was reportedly hit by a rubber bullet.
Mulago Hospital Public Relations Officer Dan Atwijukire said they took Kaboneka to the theatre and operated him to get the bullet from his chest. He added they are now nursing his wounds and doctors are working round the clock to see him steadily recover.

Another, Joseph Ssewagudde, 25, said he had gone to buy water at Kalerwe and found military police engaging in running battles with rioters. “One of them hit a baton in my eye and I fell down unconscious,” he says.
He said he still feels much headache but hoped to get better.