Village chairperson arrested over leaflets threatening to harm residents

Police in Lwengo District are holding the vice chairperson of Mirembe Village in Kkingo Sub County over anonymous leaflets dropped in the area threatening to attack residents.

Ms Aisha Nakalyango was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion that she is behind the circulation of the leaflets in 30 homes in the villages of Kyoko, Mirembe and Kagganda.

According to Mr Twaha Kasirye, the southern regional police spokesperson, Ms Nakalyango’s arrest followed complaints from residents that the latter connives with wrong elements terrorising the area.

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"Another three people have been summoned to record statements which will help us in our investigations,” he said

Last week, unknown people distributed leaflets that threatened to kill residents in the area. The leaflets demanded that the residents mentioned should flee the villages or else they would be killed.

“We inform you that your village is going to become a sea of blood if you do not chase away these people mentioned, we are going to kill the young and the old,” one of the leaflets reads in part.

Mr Moses Buwembo, a resident of Mirembe Village, said that he found a three-litre jerrycan of petrol near his house an indicator that someone wanted to burn him and his children and late in the night, he heard people throwing stones on the roof of his house.

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“The next day, I found an anonymous leaflet on my doorstep, and my name was written first and others followed. I do not know whether they are targeting me as a person because I have no grudge against anyone in this village,” he wondered.

The Kkingo Sub County Chairperson, Mr Aloysius Kibira, said that they cannot take the threatening leaflets lightly because the infamous attacks by machete-wielding thugs in 2021 also started like that.

“We are still conducting neighbourhood watch as residents, but we ask security agencies to help us beef up the security in the area to avoid a repeat of the 2021 deadly attacks on our homes,” he said.

Threats on residents’ lives have persisted in the Central region in the past one year despite assurance from security agencies that they strengthened motorised and foot patrols after a spate of attacks on residents’ homes by machete-wielding assailants between July-September in 2021.

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The assailants who were mainly targeting elderly persons left 28 residents dead in the districts of Lwengo and Masaka.