The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A 20 year old single mother of a two-months-old baby is rotting at home in a city slum due to lack of money to buy medicine for her bullet wounds.
Shakirah Nyemera who lives in Banda says she has gone to Mulago several times but failed to get medical attention as they tell her to go and buy medicine in private facilities.
Nyemera was shot by security personnel aboard a speeding security double cabin pickup car during the riots sparked off by the arrest of Robert Sentamu Kyagulanyi, a presidential candidate in the 2021 elections for the National Unity Platform (NUP) party.
She was shot with a live bullet which entered her on the right side of the rib cage and came out at the back. Nyemera was taken to hospital, but after having the bullet removed from her body, she was sent home and her gunshot wounds are still in bad condition as she feels pain all the time.
Nyemera was formerly a shop attendant in Banda. With her severe injuries, she cannot do anything unassisted and going to work is out of question. Her employment involved carrying goods, attending to clients and standing for long hours which she cannot do anymore because of injuries she sustained.
Still suffering from the bullet wounds and feeling worse every day, she narrates the ordeal she goes through nursing her two months old baby who she can no longer breastfeed. She is now appealing to well-wishers to extend a hand of help in order to get medication and something to eat and feed her baby. She says she has heard that government pledged to treat the innocent victims and is begging that this be done quickly if she is to survive.
The State Minister for Primary Healthcare, Dr Joyce Moriku Kaducu, on a visit to Mulago National Referral Hospital after the protest promised that victims were to get free medical care. However, Nyemera says when she went to Mulago, she was only operated to remove the bullet and sent back home to take care of herself.
Nyemera has since failed to get any medicine since she has no money to buy medicine from private health facilities. She adds that she once got 10,000 shillings from a well-wisher that she used to buy three tablets and that was the last treatment she received. Each tablet she needs costs shillings 3,000.
Enid Kabagambe, a caretaker helping Shakira Nyemera says the hardships the patient is going through with her baby are extreme because of pain, hunger and lack of medical attention. Kabagambe says whenever Nyemera goes to Mulago, she comes back with nothing.
Nyemera was shot at when her baby was two weeks old, she says the father of her baby disappeared immediately when she told him that she was pregnant. She met him in Kampala and she does not even know anyone related to the man. She rents a single room in Banda which she says it is hard to raise rent for too.
At least 50 people died from bullet wounds during riots that occurred following the arrest of Robert Sentamu Kyagulanyi, the NUP presidential candidate. More than one thousand were arrested, detained and arraigned in court while some are still missing and unaccounted for.
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