The child she lived for was brutally murdered during Christmas

In 2011, Ms Auditor Kamusiime, dropped out of school. She was in Senior three at that time. She had just found she was pregnant. The father of her child was married to another woman so knew she could not expect to stay with him. She decided she was going to deliver her child and dedicate her life to raising and giving it a good life.
Five years later, on December 27, 2016, Kamusiime’s child was found dead. His body was discovered by children who were playing in a culvert drainage pipe. They say they saw what looked like a body of a human being hidden under a sack. When they removed the sack, it was smelly and the skin had started peeling off. It was rotting.
Primus Aturiheihi, Kamusiime’s son, was killed in what some suspect was child-sacrifice. Ironically, the body was discovered just a few metres near the Daily Matooke market, where Kamusiime works.

Kamusiime wakes up daily to operate an eating place at the market found in the centre of Ntungamo municipality. She had hopes that her business would in future give her child a better education than what she got. It was a business she began some months after giving birth. After had dropped out of school because of the pregnancy, the 26-year-old says she stayed home until she delivered her baby; when the child was old enough to move around with, she established her small business. She runs the eating place during the day after which she retires to her rented one-room unit about a kilometre away. She spent most days with her son and they would retire home together after the day’s work.

Kamusiime says her child was a calm but playful young boy aged five. He was a pupil at Mato Primary School, and was in middle class. She remembers distinctly that when he went missing, he was putting on green sandals locally called bageigahare. This is what was used to describe him when announcements were placed on a local radio station after his disappearance.
The people who stay and work at the Daily Matooke market on the new Mbarara-Kabale road, say he was one of the most popular children there. He had more friends than any other child, even among the older people. He had gone playing with other children when he went missing.

“When he failed to return, I thought maybe he had visited one of his friends, I did not worry much until it became too long and we started searching everywhere,” Kamusiime says.
Her child, she said, never played for too long before returning home. He sometimes helped her to serve customers or collect bills from those who would have eaten before going away.
“I don’t say this because he is dead, but he was one of the brightest kids I have seen in my life, he would not play for 30 minutes before returning home, he did not go far when playing too,” she says.

What makes the tears run down her cheeks is when she talks about her past. “When I became pregnant with this child, I was dismissed from school, I did not continue studying and I later failed to cope with my boyfriend, I had to fend for myself. That’s the reason you see me here doing this business,” she says sorrowfully. It was all for her son.
A day after the boy went missing and both police and the neighbourhood had been informed, announcements were placed on the radio. When Kamusiime got a call, there was a ray of hope that he was alive.

“On Saturday morning, one of my friends came running with a phone saying that someone wanted to talk to me. The person on the phone claimed to be a witch doctor and he said he had the child and wanted Shs800,000. I did not have the money and police advised me not to send it, but we were desperate. I had to get the money and send it on Christmas (Sunday December 25), I had hopes my child would be recovered, he was my only hope,” Kamusiime says. This friend Mr Keneth Buryahika kept connecting her with a man on phone. Kamusiime was eventually able to get Shs600,000 which she sent using mobile money. But her son was not delivered to her. Buryahika was arrested in the evening after there was no trace of the child.
The person who was demanding the money was later found to be a renowned mobile evangelist Pastor Peterson Ndyomugyenyi from Isingiro District and he was arrested in connection to the case. Police arrested him after finding out that he had spoken with Buryahika several times on his cell phone on the day the child was kidnapped. Police also say Buryahika confessed that Ndyomugyenyi was the one posing as a witch doctor demanding the money.

However the phone where money was sent has not yet been found by the police.
“The captors of the child demanded that a ransom be paid or the child is used for ritual sacrifice, but even after the money was paid, the body of the child was found just a few metres where he was probably kidnapped from, showing that he may have been murdered the same hour he was kidnapped, this may not be ritual sacrifice, we will investigate everything,” Mr Baker Kawonawo, the Ntungamo district police commander says.
He says there are so many unanswered questions in the death of the child that must be investigated. There are questions over whether the mother might have been involved in the kidnap since the kidnappers were demanding the money from the father of the child; whether this was a ritual sacrifice or if it is just social hatred that led to the death of the child.

The father of the child Mr Keneth Owarugaba, speaking at the burial at Ibinga Village Nyakitunda Sub County Isingiro District said his child may have been used for ritual sacrifice and asked the police to investigate deeply. He said although he never stayed with his son, he thought he (the child) would be beneficial in future.
Ndyomugyenyi, Buryahika, Brian Muhwezi alias Brown and a one Sanyu have been arraigned for murder before Ntungamo Grade I Magistrate Court.
Meanwhile Kamusiime grieves for her child: “I wanted my child to have a better life in future, but he is dead I don’t know what I will be working for.”