Rakai deaths: Police say land wrangles to blame

The inquiry so far. Most of the relatives interrogated so far say the family leaders had, since the 1990s, held a disagreement over a piece of land.

Police are linking the killing of nine members of the same family in Rakai District to land conflicts among family members.

The Southern Regional Police Commander, Mr Simon Peter Wafana, told the Daily Monitor at Kalisizo Hospital in central Uganda yesterday that the family members had conflicts over a piece of land at Katongero Village in Kyebe Sub-county, where the family members have for long been threatening each other with death.

“We interrogated several family members and many of them centred on the land conflict between the two families of Joseph Musanya and John Kizza who died in the late 1990s,” Mr Wafana said.

Since the death of two family heads, the families had never agreed on who would control the one- and- half acre piece of land in the same village.
Nine people were killed by unknown assailants who slit their throats. The method of killing has of recent been common in the central region, especially in districts of Masaka, Kampala and Wakiso.

It is said that the victims are first sedated then the criminals make a hole in the wall before pouncing on the victims.

One arrested
Mr Wafana said one person has been arrested to assist police in their investigations.

A Toyota saloon car has also been recovered, which the police suspect the criminals could have used to flee the scene of crime. The car was found abandoned in Kyotera Town.

Mr Wafana said they allowed the relatives to take the bodies of the deceased for burial after carrying out forensic examinations and post mortem.

Police are yet to interview the two girls who survived the incident after hiding under a bed.

Eva Nambaziira, 8 and her sister, Josephine Naiga, a S.2 student of Holly Family Secondary School in Kyebe Sub-county, narrated how she saw the assailants armed with an axe and a knife which they used to kill their relatives.

She also said she heard some people digging into the wall of the house.

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