Why rape and kill this girl?

KAMPALA- As he left his mother’s home in Kyebando Quarter Zone in Kampala on Saturday August 31, Eddie Lwanga promised his two daughters that he would return to see them the following Sunday.

“And I must find your clothes very clean,” he had told nine-year old Hanisha Nambi and six-year-old Rose Namusoke. That was the last time he would speak to his first-born child, Hanisha.

Last Tuesday, Hanisha, who was popularly known as “Nisha”, was found strangled in an empty house, a few metres from her grandmother’s home.

When the Daily Monitor spoke to Lwanga last week, he was barely audible, struggling to contain his emotions.

“I am in too much pain,” he said. “I cannot find the words to describe the feeling.”
Lwanga was at his home in Kanyanya, another Kampala suburb, when he received a call that Nisha was missing.

“It was a few minutes past nine in the night. I took about 20 minutes processing that,” he says.
Lwanga tried to call his mother as he left for Kyebando but she did not pick up the phone.

“When she picked a few minutes later, she was crying. She told me Nisha had been found but dead.”
Lwanga arrived at the scene where his daughter’s lifeless body lay a few minutes after that call.
He has the painful memory of the last expression on his angel’s face, the position her body lay in.
“She appeared as if she had been fighting for her life till the last moment, struggling against her attacker,” says Lwanga.

His heart has remained heavy since then. He keeps posing questions to no one in particular.
“Why did she have to die like that? Why?”

No one seems to have an answer yet. The fateful Tuesday had begun like any other normal day. Nisha, a pupil at Serinah Nursery and Primary School, was at home helping with the house chores since it was holiday time.

In the morning, she had joined her grandmother, Rose Namusoke, who was tilling a small garden the family kept behind their home.

Later in the afternoon, heeding to her father’s instruction about keeping their clothes clean, Nisha went to wash her clothes at a nearby spring.

In the evening, joined by her sister, Rose, the duo went to play—in an abandoned house about 15 metres from their home.

Their aunt, Olivia Namusoke, says she last saw Nisha sitting on the verandah alone.
“They sometimes played with a dog and followed it a little way off but she never wandered far,” says Olivia. However, at around 8:30pm, when she called the girls to have supper, Nisha was nowhere to be seen.

By 9pm, when the girls’ grandmother returned from visiting one of her daughters who had just bore twins, Nisha had not been found yet.

“By nightfall, Nisha was always in the house. I could not understand why she was still out at that time of the night,” said the grandmother, whose both names are carried by Nisha’s younger sister.
At this point, neighbours had been asked to help in the search. One of them was Peter Waswa. He is the one who thought of looking into the deserted house.

“When I saw the body’s position, I instantly knew she was dead,” says Waswa.
Although the house has been abandoned for close to a year, there is nothing sinister about its fading cream paint and broken glass windows. No one could imagine it would be a death trap.
Like Nisha’s family, most of Quarter Zone residents are asking questions.

“Who killed this little angel? What was their motive? How safe are our children?” The questions flow but answers are nowhere.

The police suspect Nisha was raped before she was strangled. Mr Ibin Ssekumbi, the Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson, said a clearer picture of what happened to Nisha will be known on Wednesday when the full post-mortem report is received.

Two suspects, who sniffer dogs led detectives to their homes, are still under police custody.
As Nisha’s family waits for the puzzle to be solved, Lwanga, a casual labourer and small-time trader, cannot stop thinking of the dashed dreams.

“I was proud of Nisha. She recently told me she wanted to grow very fast and buy me a car. That now will not happen.”

Rape figures

530: The number of rape cases reported at police in 2012, compared to 520 in 2011, meaning cases are on the rise.

301: The number of suspects arrested and charged with rape last year, according to police records.

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