Christians in Uganda have united in prayer for war-torn Kasese, a town in the western region of Uganda, lying north of Lake George.
These have taken to twitter using the hashtag ‘#PrayForKasese‘ in an effort to remind the world to pray for the safety of children and people going about their normal lives in this region.
This is an extraordinary show of unity among Christian across the country, where the ongoing fighting has left 62 people dead, including 46 royal guards and 16 police officers.
The situation in this town grew worse over the weekend when the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) mounted an operation to recover all illegal firearms from the Rwenzururu kingdom royal guards.
As state aided newspaper New Vision reports, a joint operation by the police and the UPDF sealed off the major streets in Kasese town including the official residence of Omusinga Charles Wesley Mumbere and ordered all the civilian royal guards to vacate the place.
“We conducted a joint operation with the police in Kasese in order to recover all the illegal firearms in the hands of the royal guards including the knives and spears,” the 305 UPDF brigade spokesperson Lt Amos Nsamba told the newspaper.
It is during the scuffle between the military and the royal guards that a number of the royal guards were killed.
“The attackers used IED (improvised explosive devices as) grenades, guns, and spears to attack security personnel,” the police said.
UG Christian News has further learnt that this violence has drawn mixed reactions from Amnesty International, which says that in a “shocking display of heavy-handedness”, some victims had been shot after their arrest and their bodies dumped.
“Video footage broadcast by Ugandan TV stations shows bodies of young men apparently dumped on river banks and in bushes, and men writhing in pain as they are tossed off pickup trucks with their hands tied behind their backs,” the human rights watch group says.
Several streets in Kasese town have since been deserted and businesses closed as the police and the army started patrolling the town.
editor@ugchristiannews.com. Image Source: Instagram.
