ON March 17, 2000, Ugandans woke up to horror: more than 700 people had been burnt beyond recognition in a church at Nyabugoto in Kanungu district. The fire is believed to have been set by the leaders of the Movement for the Restoration of Ten Commandments of God, a cult group led by Joseph Kibwetere. A cult member who survived narrowly recently talked to Patson Baraire.

Ten years have gone by and the mystery around the Kanungu inferno remains unsolved. But for Keresi Nkunda, the memory of the March 17 incident is still as fresh as if it happened just yesterday. Not only did Nkunda lose all his friends in the fire, he also survived by a hair’s breadth, to tell his story.

Like all the cult members, Nkunda, 34, so believed in the cult leaders’ gospel that when they ordered all who had not sold their property to go back home and do so in preparation for the Dooms Day, he left straight away to do as the commandments required. “The cult leaders preached that personal possessions were evil. They encouraged cult members to sell everything and surrender all their assets to them,” Nkunda says.

A cult member who survived once said of Cledonia Mwerinde, one of the cult leaders: “Eventually she became rich and accumulated farms, houses and cars. She would say: ‘The Virgin Mary wants you to bring more money’.”

Nkunda who was in his early 20s at the time, says he left for his home two days before the incident to go and sell his property which included pigs and other household items. However, it took him days before he could get a buyer and by the time he returned, all the members had perished in fire that engulfed the church.

Nkunda who still looks distraught says the cult leaders assured them that there would never be the year 2000 and always prayed in preparation for heaven. When the year eventually came and nothing happened, the cult leaders were bombarded with so many questions. People who had sold their property demanded their money back which the cult leaders had taken away from them.

Shortly after the inferno, many bodies were recovered in a pit in one of the buildings in the church compound. Those who insisted on being refunded their money were reportedly killed and dumped in the pit.

Nkunda says on return from his home village, he decided to go into hiding for fear of society’s wrath; he did not want to be associated with the Movement for the Restoration of Ten Commandments of God any more.

He said at the time, he still lived with his parents in Nyakishenyi sub-county where he owned four pigs. As a good follower, he wanted to sell the pigs to contribute to the church’s opening ceremony which was soon to take place.

“Even if I had a piece of land, I would have sold it because I was already convinced the world was ending. The leaders told us all the money they collected was taken to God,” Nkunda says.

He adds that after the incident, he fled to Masaka where he did odd jobs but would sneak back to the site to see if there were any developments, and, indeed, on the day The New Vision visited the site, Nkunda had sneaked in on his routine check.

He said all the time they stayed at the cult headquarters, they were not allowed to talk to anybody. Any contact with outsiders (“sinners”) was strictly monitored and often forbidden. Cult members were encouraged to be celibate, sworn to a vow of silence and were not allowed to speak unless in prayer. Even when one visited relatives back home, he was not expected to divulge any information.

Nkunda says he has now come to terms with the situation and on one of his many visits, he decided to go back to his home where his family welcomed him. Prior to the inferno, his family members had warned him against leaving the Catholic faith to join Kibwetere.

The events leading to the March 17, 2000 incident has remained a mystery. Even after a commission of inquiry was instituted, not much about the activities of the cult has been disclosed to the public.

It is also not clear whether the people who masterminded the inferno died in the fire or managed to escape. However, after the incident, many other bodies were discovered buried in mass graves in Lugazi, Bunyaruguru in Bushenyi, Ggaba in Kampala and Buhunga in Rukungiri which many believed to have been the centres of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, a cult led by Joseph Kibwetere, Credonia Mwerinde and Dominic Kataribabo.

The three have never been sighted anywhere after the incident, raising suspicion that they too could have perished in the inferno.