Residents block Mbale-Soroti highway in protest over accidents

Residents of Namakwekwe ward in Northern division of Mbale municipality on Monday morning paralysed traffic for close to three hours when they blocked a section of Mbale- Soroti road in protest of increasing accidents, which have reportedly claimed several lives in the area.

The angry residents used stones and logs to block the road at Kikindu market, which is a kilometre away from Mbale Town.

They also burnt tyres in the middle of the road as chanted anti -government slogans. The fracas started at round 9am and it lasted up to 11am.

“We will not open this road until the concerned authorities come to our rescue because we are tired of losing our children due to accidents,” Mr Moses Gizamba, one of the protesters, who recently lost his son in an accident at the same spot, said.

As the residents were going on with their protest, police led by Elgon regional traffic officer, Mr Godfrey Mwesigye intervened and fired teargas canisters, dispersing them in disarray and later cleared the traffic to flow.

The resident also demanded that government should intervene and force Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) to put humps and zebra crossing points along the road in order to reduce on the accidents.

Mr Yasin Wabomba Kawanguzi, the area councillor said 8 people have died since this year started due to accidents in the area.

“8 people have died at this spot but UNRA officials are not bothered,” he said.

Mr Kawanguzi said the residents have been protesting for several years now but the district leaders have also not picked interest to intervene in the matter.

“We have a market in this area with over 1000 vendors and over 10 schools around this very spot. We have tried to address our concern to the district authorities but they have also not helped us,” he said.

However, Mr Mwesigye, officer condemned the act by residents to block the road, stating that they should have used a better channel to put their message across.

“They should write to UNRA to intervene instead of blocking the road. This is a busy route,” he said.

He, however, pledged to support the residents by communicating to the works ministry and UNRA about increasing accidents to have the matter addressed.

The Mt Elgon Police Spokesperson, Mr Robert Tukei confirmed that area is indeed an accident dark spot.

“We register numerous cases of accidents in the area but right now I do not have the figure of how have died since this year started,” he said.

Mr George Sonko, the manager UNRA, Mbale Branch said they aware of the area being dark spot of accidents but blamed accidents to failure by the road users to observe road signs.

“We are aware but ask the road users to observe road signs and desist from reckless driving,” he said, adding that Mbale- Soroti road is under review for rehabilitation and this will include erecting of humps and zebra crossing points.