Staff at the Gulu Regional Referral Hospital morgue prepare for their daily routines last week. The hospital administration says no one has claimed the body since it was returned to the facility by Apolot’s family close to two weeks ago. PHOTO/REGAN OCAYA
The dead also dance the nights away in Kampala City pubs. That is the sad, as well as fascinating and happy-ending story of both false death and resurrection.
Interestingly, this too starts in the Middle East, but flies to Kumi, then Kawempe, and then onto Gulu.
When a Ugandan woman who works in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) saw a distressing photo of a dead woman making the rounds on social media, she quickly called her family back home.
The features of the body looked exactly like those of her sister, Ms Harriet Apolot.
She shared with her brother the images of the body, triggering an immediate search for Ms Apolot.
Disturbingly, calls to Ms Apolot did not go through on her known telephone contacts for more than 72 hours.
Even her neighbours who had been contacted said they had not seen Ms Apolot for days.
Ms Apolot, 24, from Omolokony Village, Kumi Sub-county in Kumi District, worked as a barmaid in a Kawempe night club, on the outskirts of Kampala City.
Once the family confirmed the body in question had been conveyed to the Gulu Regional Referral Hospital morgue, they quickly mobilised to come for it.
In an interview, Mr Francis Ariko, Apolot’s uncle and a Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) officer with the Gulu-based army’s 4th Division headquarters, said a vehicle was hired by the family from Kumi Town to come and pick up the body.
“We fuelled the ambulance and set off for Gulu to pick up the body on March 19. On board was Ms Apolot's elder brother and another cousin,” Mr Ariko said.
Mr Ariko and family then approached the hospital management and corroborated how the physique and face of the deceased matched that of their 24-year-old daughter, who worked in Kampala.
At the morgue, the police surgeon had carried out a post-mortem that indicated the deceased had died from strangulation.
At the morgue, Ariko said: “I asked Ms Apolot’s brother to identify the body and he confirmed it was that of his sister. We then bought a casket and dressed the body. We left Gulu and arrived back at Omolokony at exactly 11pm.”
The relatives and residents then gathered for the vigil.
But a strange turn of events was to unfold in the wee hours of the night.
By 1am, Ms Apolot’s father received an odd phone call from one of Apolot’s friends.
The caller said his daughter had been spotted in the club dancing away the night with other partygoers.
Perplexed, the family asked Ms Apolot’s friend, who had initially said they had not seen her for days, to take a photo of Ms Apolot and share it via WhatsApp.
“Indeed, it was Ms Apolot in the photo. We asked the lady to keep an eye on Apolot while we sped to Kampala to the club to confirm. We arrived at the bar at 5am. Indeed, we found her and by 7.30am we were back in Kumi with Apolot,” Mr Ariko said.
He said Ms Apolot was paraded in church the same morning and underwent an intense six-hour prayer of intercession and cleansing.
“That was when we called back the hospital administration to tell them the dead body we took was not that of our daughter and we were returning it. They asked us to go and notify the police so that the body could be buried at a cemetery in Kumi,” he added.
But attempts to bury the body in Kumi failed, prompting the Gulu Regional Referral Hospital mortuary team to readmit the body.
Mr Ariko said while returning the body to Gulu on Sunday afternoon, the family went with Ms Apolot.
“She accompanied the body back to Gulu as proof that she was not the deceased. But one thing is clear, Apolot and the dead body looked alike,” he added.
The hospital authorities said this is the third time in four years that bodies have been returned to the morgue after a mix-up in identification.
Mr Walter Oryekwun, the hospital senior administrator, said the family of Ms Apolot returned the body to the morgue, saying their daughter was alive, hale and hearty.
No one has come to claim the body since it was returned to the facility close to two weeks ago.
“We are in the process of burying the body since no one has come forward to claim it. We will follow all the procedures before the body is disposed of on Friday,” Mr Oryekwun said.
The hospital plans to bury the body at a public cemetery in Pageya Cell, Laroo-Pece Division in Gulu City.
Meanwhile, the police in Gulu City and Omoro District continue to investigate the individuals behind the death of the woman whose body was discovered dumped in Pece Stream, Lacen-Otinga Village, Labora Sub-county in Omoro District.
The body, dumped on March 12, was strapped with rubber strings and stuffed in a huge polythene bag. The assailants also stripped her naked.
Mr Joseph Okot, the Labora Sub-county Speaker, said the killers had probably planned to hide the body since the area is used by butchers to dump the internal organs of pigs.
UNCLAIMED BODIES
The issue of unclaimed bodies is a growing concern in many districts and urban areas across the country. In 2017, 500 bodies were not claimed by relatives or friends in Kampala Metropolitan area, forcing authorities to bury them in a cemetery at Bukasa in Kira Municipality, Wakiso District.
Most of the unclaimed bodies, according to authorities, are those of victims of road accidents and violent crime. According to officials at Kampala City mortuary, bodies are photographed, laying emphasis on the clothes, identifiable marks such as scars and ornaments they were wearing so that when a relative shows up later, such information guides them on where the deceased was buried. For bodies which could have been buried for more than three months and preumed to have decomposed, officials at the city mortuary say, police use DNA to identify them before handing them to their relatives.
