Unidentified thugs have brutally murdered a South African-based Ugandan businessman for unknown reasons. The assailants kidnapped Fred Galiwango, who has been running a vehicle mechanical workshop in Lancaster Soweto on Sunday last week.
His mutilated body that was chopped into pieces was discovered at the start of this week. South African authorities repatriated Galiwango’s body and handed it over to the Uganda Police Force for postmortem around 4 am this morning.
Silas Nsubuga, who spoke on behalf of Galiwango’s colleagues and family as they waited to receive the body so that they can proceed for burial in Kayunga district, said that they are yet to establish the motive behind his brutal murder.
He explained that the deceased received a phone call from some people in need of spare parts near Soweto stadium and proceeded to make delivery. It is alleged that two unidentified men kidnapped Galiwango and placed him in a white Mercedes before they sped off to an unknown destination.
The deceased’s colleagues waited for him to return in vain and all calls to his known contacts went unanswered. After waiting for him to return in vain, Galiwango’s colleagues decided to alert the nearby police around 10 am.
According to Nsubuga, as they were still searching for Galiwango’s whereabouts, they received a call that a body of a person believed to be a man had been discovered in the bush adjacent to Soweto stadium.
“I was among those who run first to reach the scene. When we reached there, we discovered that it was indeed Galiwango who we had been looking for. He had been killed, his left had been cut off and his intestines were out. Some parts had been burnt,” Nsubuga said.
According to Nsubuga, police were alerted and the body was taken to the mortuary in Soweto where the postmortem was done. At the time of his gruesome death, Galiwango’s wife with whom he had one child had just returned to Uganda.
“He has left one child who had returned back to Uganda with the mother. We don’t know why Galiwango deserved this kind of death. I live in South Africa and I have seen many Ugandans killed by stabbing and some have been burnt in their cars. The Ugandan government should intervene. We need to be protected,” Nsubuga said.
He revealed that as Ugandans living in South Africa they are soon releasing the list of their colleagues who have been killed in a gruesome manner without any action taken by both governments.
According to Nsubuga, they have so far returned the remains of seven Ugandans who have been killed this year alone including the remains of two youths in their early 20s from Kawempe who burnt inside a vehicle, three from Mbale, and one from Mbarara.
Efforts to speak to Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesperson, Martha Okum-Ringa and Agnes Igoye, the coordinator for the department that fights human trafficking were futile as they did not pick up our repeated calls.
In 2019, unknown people burnt to death two Ugandans inside a vehicle in South Africa. South African police arrested a man in his early 20s as one of the prime suspects in the murder that occurred in Limpopo province.