Government silent on Ugandan IT expert missing in Rwanda

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is silent on a Ugandan software developer, who went missing in Kigali, Rwanda, in December last year.
Peter Ivan Egessa, 32, went missing at the beginning of December 2019 and his relatives and employers have since failed to locate him.
The spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Moses Kasujja, on Tuesday failed to respond to our questions on what efforts the ministry has undertaken to trace the missing Ugandan.
“We are going to issue a press statement about him,” Mr Kasujja said.
But by press time yesterday, the Foreign Affairs ministry had not issued any statement on the matter.
Mr Egessa’s relatives say they have been moving from one office to another for help, but no office has offered them any definite answer on what is being done.
Ms Annet Kikomeko, the sister of Egessa, said the family reported the disappearance of their loved one on January 2. “There hasn’t been any progress to find our brother,” Ms Kikomeko said.
She has been moving from one government office to another seeking help. Ms Kikomeko said she visited the Interpol offices in Kampala and they promised to send a letter to their counterpart in Rwanda to find out what had happened to Egessa but all in vein.

Latest meeting
Egessa’s disappearance wasn’t part of the issues discussed in a press conference where Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kutesa handed over nine Rwandans to the Rwanda High Commissioner, Maj Gen Frank Mugambage, in Kampala on Wednesday.
Egessa’s relatives suspect he could have been arrested by Rwandan security operatives.
Mr Emmanuel Musengeri, the brother to Egessa, said after Egessa disappeared, his employers were called by someone with a concealed number asking them to obtain details about him.
His employer’s investigations discovered that the phone call was from Rwanda Immigration Department.
“His employer visited Rwanda Immigration Department to trace the whereabouts of Egessa, but they were told they knew nothing about him,” Mr Musengeri said.

Background

The relationship between Uganda and Rwanda have been tense since last year when Rwanda closed its major border points with Uganda. It then barred its nationals from travelling to Uganda.
In November 2019, Rwanda security agents shot dead two Ugandans at the border suspecting them to be smugglers. Despite the incidents, Uganda has largely maintained silence over its icy relations with Rwanda.
However, the two countries, with intervention of Angola, formed an ad hoc commission in Luanda in September to end their standoff.
Several other meetings have since been held both in Kigali and Kampala to defuse the current tensions.