By Peter Ssebulime
It has come to our notice that several students who were brutalised by the military and police during the recent Makerere University ‘Tuition Must Fall’ protests are nursing terrible injuries.
Actually many of them are still hospitalised, others are treating wounds while some are suffering the brunt of trauma as a result of the violence unleashed upon them by the military and police deployed at the University to quel protests against the 15% tuition increment.
One of the victims, identified as David Musiri, a student at Makerere, told Spy Uganda that his health condition is worsening because of the excrutiating pain he has, yet his attempts to seek medical attention at Mengo Hospital have become futile, since medics keep telling him there is a power blackout, which has peersisted for days now.
Musiri, who says he is feeling so much pain in the lower abdomen after being assaulted by the police and military who hit him with gun butts, narrated his plight to Spy Uganda thus;
“Comrades, I am dying a silent death.
Since yesterday, I’ve been labouring hard to access a medical scan at Mengo hospital.
For two days now, they’ve been telling me there is a power blackout and so the machine can’t operate.
Today again, I physically went to see if power is on. Much as it was on, I was told the machine is now dysfunctional.
My body system is weak and each day that goes by, the situation worsens. In the course of my brutal arrest, I sustained internal injuries from the gun butts which were randomly meted on my body. In the process my back was injured, my right knee too dislodged. (https://www.utahcnacenters.com)
Today, my kidneys too are in inexpressible pain. Currently, I excrete blood whenever I try easing myself.
It is unfortunate that none of my tormentors captured on film has ever followed up to see how my health is deteriorating.
All the police knows is brutalising, torturing and terrorising taxpayers. But all this will come to an end soon as we stay on the liberation track. Fees Must Fall#”
However, our efforts to contact Mengo Hospital for a comment about Musiri’s allegations were futile since they were not answering their phones.
It should be noted that Parliament this week mandated the Education Commitee to investigate the impasse at Makerere University, plus determining whether the University is justified to institute the 15% tuition increment.
But the Committee suspended its inquisition until the Minister for education and sports Janet Kataha Museveni, who is also the First Lady, appears before it to answer several question.
The Firs Lady had sent her junior Chrysostom Muyingo, the state Minister for Higher education, who was however rejected by the Committee and directed to instead make sure his boss appears at the Committee’s next sitting.
