PRISON WARDENS IN ARUA CITY ON SPOT OVER MURDER OF 17-YEAR-OLD

A photo of the deceased Afeku Felix. Photo by Godwin Abedican.

By Godwin Abedican

Arua

Three prison wardens yet to be identified, attached to Arua main prisons are on the spotlight for allegedly having caused the death of a 17 years old teenager and beating one to comma, on Monday September 2, 2024 between 1:00am and 2:00am.

The deceased Afeku Felix, a Primary Seven lever who was waiting to join senior one next year met his death after he was allegedly arrested with the colleague, Andruga Gerald when they had gone to fetch drinking water for the deceased who was suffering heart burn from ulcers that night.

Emile John, the guardian to the two poured out anger that people entrusted to keep the law now take the law in to their hands “I have registered a case against the prison wardens. I wanted to know why the boys were beaten and one of them has already died. How can they help me in this situation? They have to now take the dead body to the village and take care of every expense that is the thing I am demanding from them. I am not able to handle the funeral expenses of that boy now, because I don’t have anything,” he said.

According to him, the grave abuse of the law must be looked in to thoroughly “The laws have been abused. The prison wardens after arresting them should have brought them here to the police and call me to come and state about them. Now they have taken the law in to their hands, they are supposed to keep the law but now they have broken the law,” Emile mentioned in anger.

Agobiga Isaac, the father of the deceased is demanding that the prisons authority comes out clear on the death of his son. “I was told it’s the mob that killed my son, no, it’s not true. My son was killed by the prison wardens, I want to understand why they went to arrest my son and yet he didn’t steal anything. I want them to meet all the burial expenses including transporting my son’s dead body to the village in Madi Okolo,” he cried out during an interview.

After their arrest, both residents of Prison cell, it is alleged that, they were arrested and scuffed then later taken to the prisons headquarters that same night and tortured which led to the death of Afeku Felix while Andruga Gerald ended up hospitalized while unconscious.

Leni Ndori, the Regional Prisons Commander for North West Nile, when asked about the incident said, the prison staff only responded to rescue the two who were being pursued by a mob from Ediofe side.

“It was at 2 am and the next point is, it was not at a water point. It was somewhere within the prison premises behind the prison wall fence, but within the chain linked area. The truth is these people came from across river Enyau from Ediofe side being chased by a group of other youth. Then, as they were chasing them of course, and our people at 2 am, were responding to the noise that they were hearing behind the prisons. The people who came were those working at night, they walked out of the prisons. Actually, they went to rescue and ended up rescuing because when they approached, the other group took off on realizing there were two people on ground,” he explained.

According to him the prison wardens simply intervened because the police took long to respond after being called. “They tried to call the police at that time the police didn’t pick the calls and as men in uniform what they did, they carried the two people to the hospital, one who was badly off and the other who was not badly off, they took to police. Even if you went to the hospital, they will confirm to you that, the other one who passed on reached the hospital when he was alive,” the RPC added.

“The version that is moving out that our personnel are the ones who tortured that person, people are picking information from the colleague of the deceased. What comes out is why were they being chased at 2 am and in any case it could be true that they are going to the taped water, at 2 am you are going to a security institution where you know there are even bullets, aren’t you risking?” he questioned.

The RPC says as prisons they have always maintained discipline at work and he doesn’t think it could be true that, the wardens did what they are being accused of, and as we have always done, as prisons, we don’t have that beating culture in us. Because we live with these people, we treat them well and even including the ones we get until they go. So, the issue of prison beating a person to death, I don’t know whoever is bringing it,” he cautioned

Meanwhile according to some residents who spoke off record, around the said water point, there was nothing like noise that night signaling thieves being chased. “This is the water point; those boys stay in that kiosk you are seeing. This is the only water point here and we don’t see any fence here as they are claiming. There was nothing like noise at night. If these guys were being chased people would have heard, even if it’s a thief being beaten, they make noise, how comes we who are near the water point did not hear the noise but the prison wardens heard? Honestly, if someone says these guys are thieves that person is lying,” she narrated bitterly.

However, Andruga Gerald, who gained consciousness after being hospitalized while speaking from his sick bed, denies the allegations that they were being pursued by a mob from Ediofe side as stated by the regional prisons commander while he was responding to the accusations against the said prison wardens.

“There is absolutely nothing like that. We just went to fetch water because of my colleague. By around 10 pm we had already slept, but my friend (now deceased) was suffering from the pains of ulcers and woke me up at 1 Am as he was experiencing heart burn and thirst. We went to fetch water and as we were coming out, we saw 3 people who put their guns and put us under gun point. When we told them that we are not thieves but residents of the same place, they never had any interests in what we were saying. They handcuffed us, took us inside their premises and beat us badly. Inside there, they were in a large number. The torture we went through was just too much,” Andruga narrated.

Observations made at the well from were the two boys were allegedly picked indicates that, the well is in an open place as opposed to the claims by prison authorities that it is within the school fences. The water point lies around 80 meters from the saloon and kiosk that were the two boys were working and sleeping in.

A murder/Assault case has since been registered at Arua City Central Police Station against Arua prisons and the officials under SD Ref: 34/03/09/2024, as investigations in to the natter commence.

Thereafter, angry relatives and community members of prison cell in Arua central division Arua city on Thursday September 5, 2024, dumped the dead body of their son and community member Afeku Felix 17 years at the offices the Prisons headquarters for North west Nile region accusing the prisons for refusing to cooperate with them in meeting the burial expenses of their child whom they said was killed by prison wardens on Monday night leading to Tuesday.

Vuni Venson a family member explained the incidences that led to the dead body being dropped at the regional prison offices. “We thought the prisons could give us the casket, the wrapping clothes, and pay us the postmortem fee. But nothing happened. I called the Resident city commissioner in the morning, he told me to go with the budget, when we reached with the budget, everybody was running away from us, the RPC prisons was running away from us, DPC was running away from us, all the stakeholders from the police were running away from us. Now, my people decided to carry the dead body saying if that is the case, the dead body should be taken and placed at the RPC prisons’ office such that they could think of what to do with it,” he narrated.

This reaction called for the intervention of the police who picked the dead body from the prisons offices and took to Arua regional referral hospital mortuary, after which the police Community Liaison Officer for Arua city and the Central Division mayor organized a meeting with the family members and community which later resulted in to an agreement for the body to be taken back home from the mortuary.

Muzaidi Khemis, the Mayor Arua Central Division attributes this action to lack of feedback on such incidences to the community. “Why the tension was a lot is that, this is the second alleged killing in the same area by prisons authorities. The first one was on Eid day; a young boy of 17 years was killed. I think why the community is raising eyebrows is there is no logical investigation that has been done to that effect. Today, the same has happened and you see them speaking in a very painful manner because of that, and their question was they were not being helped,” the mayor reacted.

Matua Alfred Otokira, the police Community Liaison Officer for the city while speaking to the family and community members during the engagement towards resolving the matter assured them of a commitment for support “I am an eye witness. They said, they will corporate with the people. The corporation they meant was to help in seeing that our brother gets a decent burial and then the issues of the suspects and what will be done to them is already decided by the law,” the police CLO said in a statement confirming the commitment for support to the family.

However according to Kumakech Salim the Resident City commissioner Arua, much as the prison’s authority is being dragged in to this matter it will be important to identify those allegedly involved such that the matter can be handed according to the law “For now, it is important that we treat it as suspicions even taking their frustrations to prisons authorities, may be they wanted to find an authority that can stand responsible when they make an alarm, institutions can be forced to think they are the ones that have caused this unfortunate incident,” he said.

“I also want to be quick to add that, the Uganda Prisons that we know has been an institution that respects human rights. It has been an institution that promotes human rights. So, I would be hesitant to think that, it is the same institution that promotes and protects human rights is again the one being accused of abusing human rights. I want us to remove the name of prisons out of this. if it is an individual person within the institution, then we should treat that as an individual mistake that is still a subject of investigation, that’s why I was able to explain this to some of the family members and they understood this,” RCC Kumakech added.

After a back and forth, finally, the family got relief on Thursday September 5, 2024 evening after the prison’s authority responded to their cry.
In a telephone interview with Vuni Venson, a key family member, he confirmed to Radio Pacis that Uganda prisons service accepted to incur the costs for the burial of the deceased.

“It is true that the prisons Institution has come in agreement to help us for the burial of our late brother Afeku. Actually, the prison director in the names of Milton Tiyo from Kampala called me and said they are really sorry for what had happened. They apologized for wat has gone wrong. They have sent their contribution to support the burial. For the burial, they gave six million, one hundred thousand shillings, then for the boy who is currently getting treatment at Rhema hospital, they have given him one million for the treatment,” he said.

The support from Uganda prisons service was said to have been sent through the RPC prisons for North West Nile Leni Ndori and the family received the money from the office of the Resident City commissioner Arua city, Kumakech Salim, which money was delivered to Peter Debele, the former RDC Arua who later took and handed over to the family members to commence travel arrangements and burial plans.

Muzaidi Khemis, the Mayor Arua central division said, it took a lot of commitment from the leaders for the approach that eventually led to the support being given. “I engaged the RCC, I called the RPC prisons, the RPC police, we sat for a meeting, and the family members presented some budget for the burial arrangements. And because of trust, they promised that whatever little they would raise would be given to the family,” he said confirming the resolution of the meeting.

Kumakech Salim, the Resident City Commissioner Arua said, when such issue occur the leaders have to draw closer to the people and intervene such that tensions in such matters are cooled for the law to be allowed to take its course.

The late Afeku was finally buried in Abiri village, Rigbo Sub county Madi Okolo district on Friday September 6, 2024.