Uganda blamed for severely torturing 3 Rwandan prisoners

After suffering intense torture in Uganda’s prisons, three Rwandans finally touched their motherland. According to the accounts of those three Rwandans, the Ugandan military intelligence authorities severely tortured them.

Both Eric Nsengimana and Appolinaire Munyakazi left their native village in Rutsiro District in Western Province in February 2018 and headed to Uganda seeking green pastures. Both were invited by a friend who suggested them for alternative sources of income in Uganda. On their trip to Uganda, through Cyanika border, they were stopped in Kisoro, a town in the south-western region of Uganda, before they could reach to their final destination, as reported by The New Times.

“We boarded a bus thinking we were going to Uganda only to be stopped at a police station in Kisoro. They ordered every Rwandan to get out and the rest continued. They asked us our travel documents and we presented them. Instead of giving them back to us, we were told that we are under arrest,” Eric Nsengimana said.

Eric Nsengimana and Appolinaire Munyakazi including a few other Rwandans, who had been held at Kisoro police station, were taken to court and the judge said they had entered the country illegally even after presenting their travel documents. The judge demanded Ugandan Shillings 1.5 million to release them or they would have to serve imprisonment of one year and six months.

“Those who had money gave it out and those who didn’t, including the two of us, had no choice but to serve our sentence. The judge said he was trying to favour us and instead of serving 18 months we would rather serve 12 months,” Nsengimana said. Both are married and have children.

Munyakazi said that they spent two weeks at Kisoro police station before being transferred to Mparo prison in Kabale District and then they were subjected to regular hard labour for the rest of 12 months. “We would wake up every day at 6am and go to parade where they would count us and brief us where we were going. We would spend the whole day digging, others making bricks and others transporting heavy trees for construction,” he recalled.

Munyakazi and Nsengimana were arrested on February 21, 2018 and released on March 4, 2019.

On the other hand, another prisoner hailing from Gasabo, Jotham Rukundo elaborated that before they were transferred to Kireka police station they had spent days blindfolded, hardly served with food, slept on wet floor and regularly heard people calling Chieftaining of Military Intelligence (CMI) officers in that secret cell.

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