Bushfires uncover unexploded ordnances in N.Uganda
Bushfires uncover unexploded ordnances in N.Uganda
27 January 2018
Published by http://observer.ug/
UGANDA – More unexploded ordnances are being uncovered by rampant bushfires across northern Uganda.
Security officials in Wol sub-county, Agago district on Wednesday this week, detonated three mortar bombs suspected to have been left by Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) combatants. They had all been uncovered by bushfires in the area.
Last week, two pupils of Otwee primary school in Amuru district were critically injured when an anti-tank bomb exploded as they played with it.
The two boys, Ivan Kidega and his brother Joel Oweri received treatment at St. Mary’s hospital Lacor for the injuries, according to Patrick Jimmy Okema, the Aswa River police spokesperson.
Okema says unexploded ordnances still pose a big threat to residents several years after Lord’s Resistance Army war ended in 2006.
Michael Ojok, the Wol sub-county speaker says one of the three bombs was detonated at the foot of Ogili hill in Mura parish while another was found in Toroma West village in Kal Agum parish and the other in Atut parish in Wol sub-county.
In neighbouring Kitgum district, a cache of more than 10 ammunition was recovered after a bushfire swept through the jungles of Tumangu village in Labongo Akwang sub-county.
Kitgum resident district commissioner William Komakech says bushfires also exposed a rusty submachine gun hidden under an abandoned culvert in Ocet Toke village, in Labongo Layamo sub-county, few kilometres from Kitgum town.
Komakech says it is the seventh weapon recovered in the district since the beginning of the dry season.
