The transport minister and former leader of the Ugandan army was shot and wounded today in a “targeted” attack against him, north of Kampala, in which his daughter and a bodyguard were killed.
The gunmen, riding motorbikes, followed General Edward Katumba Wamala’s car for four kilometers before stepping on it. Their actions refer to similar attacks that have taken place in Uganda in recent years and which have not been clarified to date.
Inspector General of Police Paul Lockets said in a statement that the four perpetrators were riding two motorcycles with license plates covered.
The minister was injured in the hand but his daughter, Brenda Nantogo, as well as his bodyguard, Haruna Cayodo, were killed. The second bodyguard escaped.
“The exact motive for this targeted attack has not yet been determined. “We consider such attacks to be a form of organized crime, aimed at undermining stability.”
Earlier, government spokesman Chris Barriomounsi said the motive and those responsible would be determined by the investigation and that the minister had been taken to a hospital where he was being treated.
The minister’s wife, Kathryn Wamala, and one of his children rushed to the scene. In a videotaped message to his family, the general said: “I survived. We lost Brenda. This is the will of God. I love you”.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called the perpetrators “pigs who do not know the value of life.” “I spoke twice with General Katouba on the phone. “They are taking good care of him,” he said, adding that authorities already had “indications of the killers.” Museveni said Katumba’s life was saved because one of the bodyguards fired warning shots, but it would have been better, he said, “to shoot to kill them.”
“We would have a dead terrorist, instead of the terrorists escaping,” he said.
This attack is the latest in a series of similar killings in Uganda. In June 2018, Ibrahim Abiriga, a leading member of President Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), was killed when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on him. In March 2017, police spokesman Andrew Cowes was killed in the same manner, and two years earlier, Joan Kangesi, a prosecutor investigating a jihadist attack in Kampala, was killed in an identical manner.
No one has been convicted of these killings to date.
