What can be done to curb rampant cases of violence during lockdown?

A two-year-old child is kidnapped and discovered dead two days later in a swamp. A seven-year-old boy commits suicide by hanging himself. It is suspected that he could have emulated what he watched in a movie. Another seven-year-old stabs his sister to death during a fight.
Husband beats wife to comma. LDUs shoot LC1 dead over suspected affair with his former wife. Man burns himself to death at a police station after his motorcycle was impounded and he was asked to pay a bribe before he could given back his motorbike.
These and more are the news making headlines in Uganda. The Pearl of Africa seems to be in turmoil like one of the scenes in World War Z, where the zombies have attacked mankind. Unlike World War Z, it is humans against humans.

The lockdown has intesified people’s suffering. Yes, we are fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a war like President Museveni said. We ought to stay alert and hear the enemy’s footsteps. It seems to be working, we can hear the tremors of the disease, its thumping footsteps are audible. We know that it is approaching from the north although some isolated cases are coming through the west. Nonetheless, we are at least aware that it is coming.
But how come we are oblivious of the violence, the impunity, and the inhumanity, yet they are as deadly or worse than Covid-19. In some instances, violence and impunity seem to be mightier than the pandemic given that many lives have been lost due to violence and none from Covid-19. Consider the fact that still has one of the least cases of coronavirus.

Great job by the Ministry of Health personnel and all the frontline staff in fighting Covid-19. But what about the increasing psychiatric cases, the increasing death due to inaccessibility of medical facilities, the increasing insecurity from the people who are supposed to secure us, the domestic violence, the poverty whose jaws are wide open like it has been starved for a century, and now, it is taking toll, devouring all irrespective of age, gender, and status. I mean, how about the learners locked at their homes and watching the devil we call domestic violence.
I hear the 2021 General Election is to be a digital, virtual, hybrid, name it. But what do we think about people who have resorted to eating banana peelings as food. Have they stopped to matter?
As for masks, I know they will be available some day, but how the atrocities being unleashed on citizens, whom shall we turn to for answers?

Timothy Goodwins,
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