Kiboga, (UG):- The Territorial Police in Kiboga District are investigating the double murder of two siblings in a suspected ritual sacrifice in Kirinda Village, Kapeke Sub County.
The two victims; identified as Easter Nakasumba, 5, and Sylvia Nantongo,2, went missing on Wednesday afternoon after their parents whom they had accompanied to their farm asked them to go home for lunch.
“We reported a case of missing children at Kiboga Police Station and embarked on a search and rescue operation throughout the night but we failed to trace them. I was shocked to receive information this morning (Thursday) that my children had been murdered,” Julius Sseruyima tearfully narrated the incident.
According to Wamala Region Police spokesperson, Ms Racheal Kawala, the police swung into action after receiving information about the discovery of some body parts of the victims, detectives deployed a sniffer dog that combed the scene at Kasinina along Kampala- Kiboga highway where Nakasumba’s torso had been dumped.
“Next to her decapitated body, there was a paper note directing detectives where the two heads of the victims had been dumped. Using our sniffer dog, we landed on the heads in a brick furnace near Kasinina Elimu Church. The dog later led detectives to a house which was also used as a shrine,” she said.
Inside the suspect’s house, Ms Kawala said detectives recovered a pen and a book where the suspect reportedly plucked a paper on he wrote information they used to locate where the two heads were dumped.
“We have so far arrested the wife of the witch doctor we found washing clothes at home to help us with investigations,” she said, adding that some body parts of the victims were still missing by press time.
Similar cases
Cases of traditional healers engaging in suspected ritual murder are common in central Uganda. For example, in February 2019, Police in Luweero District with the help of residents stormed the home of a prominent traditional healer in Butiikwa Village, Kikyusa Sub County and set nine shrines ablaze, accusing him of killing a resident in a suspected ritual murder.
When police confronted the traditional healer in a bid to search his shrines, he put up strong resistance but was overpowered. What they discovered in the shrines was shocking, according to police. There was a decapitated body and hundreds of human bones recovered from eight shallow graves.
During interrogation at the police, the suspect said his accomplices took an adult male to his shrine for ritual sacrifice.
What the law says
According to the Prevention and Prohibition of Human Sacrifice Act 2020, human sacrifice and financing of the practice are criminal and punishable by death upon conviction.
An attempt to commit or finance the offence and spreading the belief in human sacrifice for financial reward or any form of gain attracts a sentence of life imprisonment.
According to the 2013 Child Sacrifice and Mutilations report, one child is sacrificed every week compared to the seven cases of child sacrifice reported to Uganda Police in 2011. The report adds that people carry out human sacrifice seeking wealth and fortune, among others.
Source: Monitor
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