Government official dies at Amsterdam Airport, airline unaware

Michael Odong

What you need to know:

According to the Commissioner Crop Resources at the Ministry, Okasai Opolot, the Netherlands Embassy in Kampala confirmed the death of Mr Odong adding that the postmortem results in Netherlands indicate that the 53-year-old died of natural causes

The Ministry of Agriculture has confirmed that Michael Odong, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of agro-chemicals died in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam on Sunday.

According to the Commissioner Crop Resources at the Ministry, Okasai Opolot, the Netherlands Embassy in Kampala confirmed the death of Mr Odong adding that the postmortem results in Netherlands indicate that the 53-year-old died of natural causes.

“Yes,  we have spoken to the Netherlands Embassy and they have confirmed they found his body at the Schiphol Airport on Sunday and we are aware that he was on official duty and had a transit flight to attend a meeting in Switzerland,” he said.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol 

He explained that last week, the fallen commissioner attended a three-day conference in Jinja which he closed on Sunday and the late had to catch an evening flight to travel for the meeting where he was representing government.

The 53-year-old commissioner on Sunday travelled to Switzerland using a KLM flight that was connecting through the airport where his body was found by the Police.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol 

When contacted, Lukiya Otema, the KLM Country manager feigned ignorance about the incident saying they have not received any such information and even if they did, they are not allowed to discuss customer information with third parties otherwise their license could be revoked.

“We are just hearing that information from you. We do not have any information of that nature and even if we did, it is very sensitive and we cannot discuss it with third parties,” she said.

In September, the Ugandan Ambassador for Special Duties at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Kampala, Najuna Njuneki, collapsed and died aboard a plane while returning from a meeting in Stockholm, Sweden.

Ambassador Njuneki became the other high-level Uganda government official to die 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.