BREAKING: Ugandan diplomat dies aboard a plane

KAMPALA. Doctors in South Africa are tomorrow (Monday) expected to carry out a postmortem to establish the cause of death of Ambassador Najuna Njuneki, who collapsed and died aboard a plane yesterday.
“He got up from his seat, but before he could disembark, he collapsed and before they could take him to a health facility within the airport, he died,” Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kutesa told this newspaper by telephone from London.
Ambassador Njuneki was reportedly returning from a meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, with Ugandans living in Nordic countries. Vice President Edward Ssekandi attended the Diaspora gathering which, Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary James Mugume said, focused on investment.
As an Ambassador for Special Duties at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Kampala, Njuneki was in-charge the Diaspora community and coordinated the Ugandan aspect of the regional Northern Corridor Infrastructure projects.
“It is very unfortunate that he has died; it’s a sad thing. We don’t know the cause of death,” minister Kutesa said.
Preliminary reports suggest Ambassador Njuneki boarded the plane while seemingly in good health only to pass away upon landing in Johannesburg.
Uganda’s High Commission in Pretoria has taken charge of the body, according to Foreign Affairs ministry, and will handle it until it is flown back home on Wednesday.
“He was a hardworking person and it is a pity that we have lost him,” Ambassador Mugume said, adding: “A post-mortem will be done on Monday”
Njuneki hailed from the western Mitooma District and his brother, Gerald Njuneki, in a facebook post said the ambassador was their first born and heir to the family of the late Geremu Njuneki.
“We need your prayers!” he noted.
Ambassador Njuneki becomes the second high-level Uganda government official to died abruptly on a plane, following the death almost a year ago of then Internal Affairs minister Aronda Nyakairima aboard an Emirates Airline plane while returning from South Korea.