Explosive kills two children, injures one in Kumi

Kumi, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Two children were killed and another critically injured in an explosion in Kanapa village, Kanapa sub county, Kumi district on Wednesday, December 28, 2022. The dead are Dinah Acham, 2, and Josephine Ingolet, 5, while the injured is Emmanuel Epaja,7 years.

Sam Okiror, the Kanapa village chairperson says that Acham died on the spot while Ingolet died on her way to the hospital. According to Okiror, the children picked a black polythene bag containing an explosive from Francis Okaje’s compound, a neighbor to the family of Richard Okwii, the grandfather to the deceased children.

He says that all the children belong to Betty Adongo, a daughter of Richard Okwii. “Adongo was married in Bukedea where she had two children (Epaja and Ingolet) but had some issues with her husband, forcing her to return home. At home, she remarried and had another child, Acham. But the two elderly children have been staying with their father until last week when she requested them to join her for Christmas celebrations”, Okiror said.

He added that where the explosion occurred is a compound belonging to two veteran soldiers. Both Okwii and Okaje, are ex-soldiers working with the UPDF.

The police and army have been retrieving explosives in Teso over time, something attributed to the insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2020, the police recovered an active TNT Bomb from the garden of Aloysius Omasike, a resident of Adodoi village in Mukongoro sub-county in Kumi district.

In 2006, two people were killed and seven others injured in an anti-aircraft explosion, in Amililmil parish, Amuria district. Over five bombs were recovered from the same village in 2016 during the UPDF operations in Amuria district.

Almost all the districts in Teso have recorded cases of bombs/grenade explosions or recoveries lately. In Soroti, the police recovered an active bomb in Moruapesur Primary School camp.

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