Girl rejects return to village school, grandmother says she committed suicide

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A six-year-old child has reportedly ended her life in what the family says might be a protest against a decision to take her back to a village school. The shocking incident happened in Bweyogerere Central Zone, Kira municipality on Wednesday.

The deceased has been identified as Maureen Nantambi. Before her death, Nantambi stayed with her grandmother Asula Nakafu, a market vendor in Bweyogerere market. Her father was due to pick her to return to their village in Buikwe district and resume studies after schools reopened.

According to Nakafu, her grand-daughter became unhappy when she heard her asking her father Samuel Ssetyabule to take her to the same school she had briefly attended, before the lockdown.

“She told me she wasn’t going back to study in the village, and that her father was rude. She said she wanted to remain with me but I did not take it seriously,” Nakafu narrated. She said that she was called from the market that her granddaughter had ended her life.

She reportedly did this with a piece of cloth she tied on the decker bed in her room on Wednesday.

Anifa Nassanga, a neighbour said the minor did not come out to play with others as she usually does. And her colleagues kept calling her out without responding until they went inside and found her hanging. She is however puzzled how a young child could have come across the thoughts of ending her life.

Scovia Mutesi, another resident in the neighbourhood says the fact that the child had informed her grandmother not to take her back to Buikwe, shows that the father of the minor was traumatizing her, maybe  with beatings.

But Hanington Kyeswa another resident said committing suicide “is a spiritual devil that haunts some families”.

A police officer in the child and protection unit at Bweyogerere Police said suicidal cases in minors are a result of depression resulting from domestic violence in families, and others come from watching harmful content in movies and social media.

On Monday, a senior four student of Makerere College School also committed suicide under almost similar circumstances.

The deceased was identified as Emmanuel Okello, an 18-year-old from Kiwologoma, still in Kira Municipality, Wakiso district. His father told the police that the son had informed them that he was no longer interested in going back to Makerere College School.

According to the World Health Organisation-WHO, close to 800,000 people die by suicide every year, and for each death, there are more than 20 suicide attempts.

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