Student aborts, dies at man’s home in lockdown
What you need to know:
- Issue. President Museveni closed schools on March 18 as a measure against coronavirus. Some students stayed at schools or in hostels as their parents mobilised financial resources but the lockdown that froze public transport dampened their efforts to go back home.
A female student at the International Paramedics Institute on Masaka Road has died while terminating pregnancy at her boyfriend’s home in Kampala City.
The 20-year-old, who had been released from medical school after its closure due to the lockdown, was rushed to a clinic in Lugooba village, Kawempe Division in Kampala in an unresponsive state yesterday evening.
The Kampala Metropolitan Police deputy spokesman, Mr Luke Owoyesigyire, said the medical officers who examined her found that she had passed away before being admitted and informed the police.
“The man, who brought her to the clinic, was arrested. He told detectives that he was the deceased’s boyfriend. During interrogation, he told us the deceased was pregnant and was aborting when things went wrong,” Mr Owoyesigyire said yesterday.
The boyfriend is being held at Kawempe Police Station on a charge of murder as pathologists carry out an autopsy on the body.
Mr Owoyesigyire said if it is found that the boyfriend participated in the failed abortion, he will be charged with attempt to procure an abortion contrary to Section 141 of the Penal Code Act.
According to the section, “Any person who, with intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to her or causes her to take any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means, commits a felony and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years”.
Mr Owoyesigyire said the boyfriend did not know the parents or any relative of the deceased to reach out to at the time of the alleged crime.
“The detectives had to go through the mobile phone of the deceased and contacted her mother,” he said.
Efforts by the parents to pick up the body at Kampala Capital City Authority mortuary are ongoing.
