River Nile drowning: Bodies of two fishermen retrieved amid protests
What you need to know:
- One victim was buried at the Jinja City Muslim cemetery, with his relatives saying that they didn’t have money to transport his body to Yumbe District.
The two bodies of fishermen who drowned in River Nile on Thursday last week when the boat engine reportedly developed a mechanical problem and capsized have been retrieved amid protests.
The deceased were identified as Mansur Mokili of Yumbe District and Ismail Opel of Pakwach District, while Ismail Oukounci, who was steering the boat at the time of the accident, survived.
The incident is said to have happened between the New Jinja Bridge and Uganda Railways Bridge in Buikwe District while the fishermen were going to cast their nets in the waters.
Since then, security and search parties intensified the hunt for the victims which yielded results on Saturday morning with the retrieval of Mr Mokili’s body.
However, protests immediately erupted after some of the members from the Alur community in Jinja City stopped the West Nile community, to which Mr Mokili belonged, from taking his body for burial until the body of Mr Opel, an Alur, was also retrieved.
Mr Emmanuel Mange, the chairperson Nile Landing Site where the incident happened, said: “There is belief that when two people drown at the same time and one body is discovered, it should not be retrieved from the water or buried because the other one will not be seen.”
Mr Mange added that both parties unanimously agreed to keep the body in the water until Sunday at about 9:30am when the second body was seen floating and retrieved, before both corpses were handed over to their respective relatives for burial.
The late Mr Mokili was buried in Jinja City Muslim cemetery, with his relatives saying that they didn’t have money to transport his body to Yumbe District; Mr Opel’s relatives took his body to Pakwach for burial.
However, Police were noticeably missing at the scene, although efforts were made to contact them through phone calls to carry out autopsies on both bodies, which was all in vain.
Lt Jude Wandera, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Jinja Zonal Public Relations Officer, confirmed the recovery of both bodies.
Earlier, Mr Mange attributed the accidents to the alleged “irresponsibility” of some of his colleagues who have reportedly continuously failed to wear lifejackets whenever they are sailing and denied claims that some of them go fishing when they are intoxicated.