Robbed of life by trigger-happy guard

Daniel Babara, 22. courtesy photo

What you need to know:

Daniel Babara, 22, was shot by a guard as he and his comrades were partying at Buloba Beach in Mityana District on September 13. He died at Mulago hospital.

Mityana

A bright future was ahead of Daniel Babara, 22. He had completed his studies at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi and expected to graduate in November this year.

Unlike many university students who leave college to unemployment, Babara had already gotten a juicy IT job with Crane Bank before his graduation. He studied statistics and computer science at university.

Although many fresh-from-school youth would have wanted to stay at Crane Bank longer, the aggressive Babara widened his net farther and got another job at Simba Telecom Company. Here, he received a welcome at the new station and was due for training in Nairobi, Kenya.

However before all these opportunities came to fruition, Babara’s life was tragically terminated by a trigger-happy private security guard as he and his comrades were partying at Buloba Beach in Mityana District on September 13.
He was pronounced dead hours later at Mulago National Referral Hospital where he had been admitted.

That ended Babara’s graduation, his induction training in Nairobi and all the attendant opportunities ahead. It all started when the youth was merry-making at the beach at around 3am with a group of old friends from his university.

Babara’s uncle, Mr Julius Bagonza, said they were told by witnesses that at 3am the beach management informed the clients that they wanted to close and everyone should vacate. “As you know students, they resisted. They still wanted to have more happiness,” Mr Bagonza said.

The youth insisted the place remains open until they exhausted the last coin in their wallets. “I am told a security guard at the beach came in to quell the scuffle. From nowhere, the bullet came out of the chamber and hit Babara,” Mr Bagonza said. “It all happened so fast.”

After the shooting, Babara’s friends rushed him to Mulago hospital with a hope that his life would be saved.They were wrong. “To my disappointment, there was no single medical personnel in the whole Intensive Care Unit of our national referral hospital Mulago,” Mr Bagonza said.
“There was completely nothing. Not even a receptionist. We had to carry him and put it on the floor since there wasn’t even a stretcher,” he recalled.

They waited for help but in vain. Whenever they would hear a sound of a car coming in, their hopes would be raised that maybe a health worker was on his or her way to help but they were only police patrol cars delivering casualties.
“We watched police patrol cars bring victims after almost every 10 minutes,” he said.

The victims joined a long queue of those fighting for their lives. Babara’s life started failing. He stopped complaining about pain, lost energy and became motionless.
He was pronounced dead hours later.
Relatives and friends were told later that health workers often do not operate deep in the night at the Intensive Care Unit during weekends.
“Our country is going to the dogs. Just like that we lost a very promising young man,” Mr Bagonza said.

Babara was buried at his ancestral home in Fort Portal, Kabarole District on Wednesday. An innocent soul brutally robbed of life by a trigger-happy gunman. Tragic it is.