Kidnappers pluck out fingernails of Bwaise man

Ssegawa on his hospital bed at Mulago Hospital. PHOTO | URN

Ronald Ssegawa, a resident of Bishop Mukwaya, Bwaise I in Kawempe, a Kampala suburb is in excruciating pain after going through a phase of torture by his abductors.  

Unidentified people reportedly kidnapped Ssegawa near Avis Company along Tula Road a fortnight ago. According to his family, they searched for Ssegawa in various places in vain until his abductors dumped him near Mulago City Mortuary on Saturday.    

“We received a phone call from a doctor because previously we had searched in there and luckily we left the picture of the missing person plus our contacts. We were shocked by the situation under which, we found my brother in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU),” said Frank Kyeyune, Ssegawa’s brother.   

Mortuary attendants and security guards found Ssegawa unconscious and wrapped in a big sack, and rushed him to the casualty ward and later to the Intensive Care Unit to save his life.

A security guard at the City Mortuary in Mulago, who spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity, said, plain-clothed people with masked faces driving a vehicle with a covered number plate dropped Ssegawa around 10.00 pm.              

“We saw a car parked near the gate, two men opened the boot and dropped out something we saw as a polythene bag on the roadside. We could not go there first. The car that had no number plate sped off. When we checked, we found a person still alive,” said the security guard.

Kyeyune, says his brother was severely tortured to the extent of plucking out fingernails from his left hand. 

Mr Patrick Onyango, the Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson has advised the family to file the case to at police so as to kick off the investigations.

"They need to open up the case at the police near them to enable the investigations into this matter of Ssegawa,” he said.   

Several people have been arrested and tortured since the November protests triggered by the arrest of the National Unity Platform presidential candidate, Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine. The abductors sometimes come dressed in plain clothes, military, counter-terrorism or joint anti-terrorism task force –JATT uniforms.

The abductors grab their victims on their homes, streets, markets, garages, or their homes. Recently, Internal Affairs Minister, Gen Jeje Odongo tasked the Director of the Criminal Investigations Directorate –CID, Grace Akullo to probe the rampant abductions by suspected security personnel.