By Leilah Bbaale
The National Unity Platform- NUP party president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine has urged Ugandans to speak up against any injustices by the government including forced land evictions.
According to Kyagulanyi, Ugandans must rise up and demand for their rights. He has condemned the increased illegal land evictions across the country saying many Ugandans are going through untold suffering adding that their general human rights are being violated.
He made the remarks on Thursday while speaking to the more than 300 families who were evicted by Hoima Sugar Ltd in 2014 to pave way for sugarcane growing in Kijayo, Kiziranfumbi Sub County in Kikuube district.
Kyagulanyi also donated food items to the evictees who are currently squatting at Kijayo internally displaced camp in Kiziranfumbi sub-county.
The residents were evicted from a piece of land measuring 1,557 hectares after the late Prince Hebert Kimera Rwakiswaza who claimed to be the rightful owner of the land leased it to Hoima Sugar Ltd to set up a sugar plantation and factory.
The affected residents are from the villages of Muzirandura, Kyabataka A & B, Kyakasoro and Nyawante in Kiziranfumbi sub-county. Hoima Sugar has planted sugarcane in all these villages, were the residents initially settled.
The affected persons led by Omuhereza Asaba narrated to Kyagulanyi about the poor living conditions saying they lack decent accommodation adding that in case of a fire outbreak, their grass thatched houses can be destroyed in no time. Omuhereza Asaba decried the delayed delivery of justice to the evictees.
Gorreti Tinkaziire, one of the affected residents says the locals have suffered enough and blamed the government for abandoning them. He says that they have been surviving on relief aid from civil society organizations.
Currently, the evictees including women, men and their children are living in congested makeshift huts without social amenities such as schools, health facilities, water and food.
