The case of a political activist Sarah Lukumi, suspected to have fled from Uganda to an unknown place for her dear life, is one of the many that continue to come to light revealing the levels of inhuman behaviour by operatives of Ugandan security organs targeting Ugandans who have divergent views against the violation of human rights.
It also once again highlights lawlessness on the part of Ugandan authorities in abetting arrests & abductions and in fact, with no legal or due procedure of countless Ugandans and holding them incommunicado.
Earlier days when missing Sarah (R) was still in Uganda
The Capital Times learnt that Sarah Lukumi was arrested alongside other activists back in 2017, and detained in Nalufenya which used to be a dangerous detention centre.
According to our investigations, after the intervention of other human rights defenders, Sarah who was a vocal activist was released.
Close sources told us that she was supposed to be back to the same police station after a week but before her time could come, she feared that she would get rearrested by security agents for reasons unknown, as it has always been to the other opposition political activists.
But this did not go well with security operatives as they kept following her whenever they learnt of her whereabouts.
Our sources revealed that she is nowhere to be seen from then. Being vocal and active in youth revolution and movements, people started looking for her whereabouts.
Sarah’s glorious days before things turning worse
What happened to Sarah Lukumi is very similar to the injustices that have happened to opposition leaders and other activists.
Some of her fellow opposition activists told our sources that with several intimidations and arrests, they are now moving into hiding.
This is the standard operating procedure of police against the vocal opposition political activists here in Uganda. This is the way political prisoners are being kidnapped, arrested and tortured in police and prison cells.
When we contacted the close pals to Sarah Lukumi for any comment, they remained tight lipped because of too much hell they might go through due to security harassment and surveillance.
It should be noted that opposition activists like Lukumi who are not in big party positions, their torture cases are not given enough attention like the big party leaders i.e. Kiiza Besigye, Norbert Mao and others.
Thus, such people have very little chances of being traced and found, and even little effort put into their bonds and bails as they at times fail to find good and reputable lawyers.
It is further going to get worse for the opposition activists in the period of the forthcoming 2021 general elections, as detentions and other mysterious disappearances have even already taken course.
By Presstime, efforts to speak to Ugandan security authorities were futile as none of them could give a comment to our repeated calls.
