Rotarian Owori’s body delays to arrive

The remains of Rotary President-Elect Sam Owori arrived this morning at Entebbe International Airport.

The body of the fallen Rotary International president elect Sam Owori failed to arrive as scheduled at 1pm. However, by 2pm, neither the airline nor the Rotary Fraternity had the airway bill which would have informed them where the body was.

The estimated arrival time kept shifting to 1:30pm, 2pm, 2:30pm and eventually 3pm when Mike Sebalu who was coordinating the receiving of the body, received the airway bill which showed that the body was still in Saudi Arabia and it was expected in Entebbe at midnight.
The Rotary fraternity and the late Owori’s family members were forced to camp at Airport View Hotel in Entebbe as the arrival time for the body kept changing.

Monica Fahmy, Senior Media Relations Specialist of Europe and Africa said Rotary’s travel insurance company Axis, and its service provider EuropAssist, who arranged the repatriation of Mr Owori’s remains stated that the scheduled cargo flight from Istanbul to Entebbe, on which the body was, changed because there were two planes on the tarmac that had mechanical issues that delayed the flight.

This resulted in the delay of the departure until 5pm on July 24th. She said EuropAssist considered that to be the root cause of the delayed arrival into Entebbe.


Contrary to information that the body had not been embalmed in USA, Fahmy stated that EuropAssist confirmed Mr Owori’s body had been embalmed by the US funeral director.

Programme
Parliament is today expected to pay tribute to the late Owori and tomorrow, Rotarians will gather at Lugogo Cricket Oval to pay their last respects.
On Thursday, there will be a requiem service at Namirembe Cathedral before the body is taken to Tororo District.
On Friday the body goes to his home in Kidera Tororo District and burial will take place on Saturday.