Forces on the spot over women beating in Arua

Two elderly women in Arua District are nursing injuries they sustained during the implementation of presidential directives aimed at controlling the spread of the global coronavirus endemic.

Ms Hellen Driciru, 60, a resident of Alivu Village, Alivu Parish in Pajulu Sub-county, Arua District is nursing wounds at Arua Regional Referral Hospital after she was allegedly hit by a prison warder while she was being carried on a boda boda.

Ms Driciru said she was heading to hospital to treat her swollen leg.

Speaking to Daily Monitor from her hospital bed at Arua Regional Referral Hospital on Monday afternoon, Ms Driciru said the prison warder hit her twice on the head using his gun butt.

“When I fell down, I cried out for help. But I remember a policeman blaming him for hitting me that hard before establishing why I was travelling on a bike,” she said.
Ms Driciru said the incident happened on Friday at around 4pm as they approached Giligili prisons.

“I had told the boda boda to drop me at Luluwiri Trading Centre but he sympathised with me owing to my poor health. As we approached Giligili, a prison warden jumped from the roadside and hit me with his gun butt,” she said, adding that she has four dependants to take care of.

The caretaker, Ms Susan Elimasia, said although she looks stable now, her right eye is swollen.

Ms Driciru says she lacks money to do a scan. She was stitched and given some pain killers.
The North Western Regional Prisons Commander, Mr George Lenga, however, said the matter has never been brought to their attention officially.

“This is a surprise to me because I’m not aware of that case. But even then, our officers or warders are not allowed to implement that directive. It is only the police and Uganda People’s Defence Forces soldiers to do that. I will still inquire more from the OC Giligili because he did not inform me,” he told Daily Monitor in an interview.

President Museveni banned the movement of people, motorists and cyclists for 14 days to control the spread of coronavirus.

Another woman

Meanwhile, a 78-year-old woman whose photographs went viral on social media last Friday, Ms Regina Ondoru, a resident of Bibia Cell in Arua Hill division, allegedly fell off a boda boda that was evading arrest by the law enforcement officers implementing the presidential directives.

Earlier reports had indicated that she was brutally beaten by the security agencies.

However, she told Daily Monitor in an interview on Tuesday: “When my boda boda man realised that there was a police vehicle following us, he decided to throw me down and I sustained injuries on my forehead. I was not hit by police,” she said, adding that she was heading to the main market.

Police. The regional police spokesperson, Ms Josephine Angucia, however, cautioned cyclists against defying the presidential orders.

She said police would continue to caution their officers to remain professional and human while executing their duties.

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