By Ismael Kasooha

A 21-year-old young man has been arrested by the Police for allegedly hacking his wife and child to death.
Mark Birungi of Kyanaisoke sub-county in Kibaale district, handed himself in to the Police after the murders.

Speaking to The New Vision from Isunga Police cells, Birungi blamed his 19-year-old wife, Feyi Nalukenge, for denying him sex for the last one week.
He said on the night he struck her, he tried to convince her to make love at about 10:00pm but she turned him down, saying he was sexually weak.

Birungi added that he tried again on Tuesday morning at around 5:00am but the wife pushed him to the floor.
This act, he said, angered him, prompting him to slash her neck with a panga.

“I felt I was being denied my right of having sex at the expense of my elder brother, Kyaligonza, which forced me to kill her,” he explained.

Birungi said in the course of killing his wife, he accidentally cut their nine-month-old child.

He, however, added that he doubted fathering the child because the woman had an affair with Kyaligonza.

“This woman kept telling me that I would die in two months and my assets would be inherited by my brother.

“These statements were haunting me,” he said.

John Bingi, the Kamuroza village chairman, said he was alerted by the Police about the murder after Birungi reported himself.

He said he was surprised by the murder since the family record was clean.

“I have never heard anything regarding this couple in my office. They appeared to live in harmony,” he said.

John Ssebugwawo, an uncle to the deceased, said the couple had a disagreement two weeks ago but itwhich was resolved amicably and the woman went back to her husband.
Birungi said he regreted his acts, saying it was due to excessive anger and prayed for God’s mercy.

He dropped out of school at a young age and turned to smal-scale farming. He owns a brick house and recently acquired a motorcycle. The deceased were buried in Kamuroza last evening.

According to a survey done last year by the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, wife battering remains the main form of violence against women in Uganda.

The Human Rights Initiative discovered that out of every 10 women, eight are physically battered by their husbands weekly and they do not report to any authority.