The silent skulls of Gombe speak to Uganda’s soul

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OPINION

By Crispin Kaheru

I recently stood on a hill not far from Kampala — in Gombe sub-county, Wakiso district — and felt a silence so profound, it screamed.

Beneath that stillness lies a mass grave unlike any other.

A monument marks the spot, humble in appearance, yet beneath it rest 2,405 skulls — each a life once vibrant, now reduced to bone and memory. They do not whisper. They do not wail. They watch — with hollow eyes that accuse and mourn, that beg us to remember.

This is not just a memorial. It is a graveyard of voices, a sacred reminder of the cost of hate, the cost of power untamed and the cost of war.

Brigadier General John Byuma, a native of Gombe and a survivor of Uganda’s turbulent 1981-1986 war, still carries the images with him. “It was around 1983, a lorry came and dumped about 17 bodies here,” he recalls, his voice faltering. “Cut, maimed... fresh human blood. We came closer. One of them was still breathing. His name was Mugerwa. His head had been hacked, but somehow, he was alive.”

Mugerwa had been a taxi driver. He was among the lucky — if luck can be claimed by the living among the dead. Treated by the ‘Black Bombers’, the 7th Battalion of the National Resistance Army (NRA), he lived to recount how he and others were ‘picked up’ from Kampala and surrounding areas, accused of collaborating with the NRA fighters, tortured and discarded like trash in the countryside.

What crime had they committed? None. Except being suspected.

Their story is buried there — on a hill that overlooks the present-day Gombe sub-county headquarters, a site now shaded by history’s long shadow. But Gombe is just one among 37 such sites in what was once known as the Luwero Triangle — scattered scars across Uganda’s heartland, each a tombstone to a tragedy too painful to forget.

“This skull is my brother”

A local leader, eyes glassy, stands before the monument and says simply, “I know one of those skulls. It is my brother’s.” Around him, heads nod in quiet solidarity. In Gombe, every family seems to bear a scar. Every home has an empty chair. Some bodies returned. Most didn’t. For many, all that was left were rumours and prayers. This is grief that does not fade.

Questions with no answers

When Bishop Wilson Kitara of Kitgum Diocese visited the site with us, his voice trembled with anguish. “Who were these people?” he asked. “Where did they come from?”

An elderly man replied, “Some were from Kampala. Some from farther. These skulls are from Uganda. Every tribe. Every religion. Every walk of life.” In death, they were united. Not by identity, but by the cruelty of instability.

“These could be people from the 56 ethnic groups of Uganda,” one man says. “They could even be foreigners.” The bishop stands silently, letting the wind answer.

“They paid the price,” he finally says, “for us to be here today. May we never forget. May we never return here.”

“We must repent”

As the bishop led a prayer, even the birds in the trees seemed to still.

A hush fell over the people that stood around — survivors, descendants, community leaders, government officials. Heads bowed, eyes closed. Maybe in pain. Maybe in reflection. Maybe to dissemble emotions.

“We must repent,” the bishop declared. “This land must never drink blood again.”

A soft chorus echoed back: “Never again.”

But words, however solemn, are not enough. “Never again” must become action. It must be a vow written not just in history books, but in policies, in classrooms, in the hearts of a new generation.

The past is not past

This country, our Uganda, has come far — but not far enough.

The shadow of its past still creeps through the corridors of politics, through the silence of mass graves, through the hush in families where names are no longer spoken.

A nation that does not confront its past risks reliving it. And so, we must ask ourselves: what have we learned?

In a world of fast-moving politics and distractions, who will pause long enough to listen to the cries beneath the soil of Gombe? Who will remember the names that history has erased? Who will stand up when the signs of conflict begin to stir again?

War is not heroic. It is horror

There is no glory in war — only devastation. Only the echo of voices never heard again. War is not a movie. It is not victory parades. War is what happens when humanity forgets itself.

War is a lorry full of hacked bodies dumped on a hill. War is mothers never seeing their sons again. War is silence in a home that once knew laughter. War is Mugerwa, breathing among the dead.

A call to all Ugandans

What happened in that small area called Gombe is not isolated.

It belongs to Acholi.

It belongs to Ankole. To Buganda. To Bugisu. To Bukedi. To Bunyoro, Busoga, Elgon, Karamoja, Kigezi, Lango, Rwenzori, Sebei, Teso, Toro, West Nile and to every community in Uganda where someone once waited in vain for a loved one to come home — and they did not.

The blood that watered this land did not discriminate. It called all of us. It buried all of us. And so, it must awaken all of us.

We must reject the politics of hate, of suspicion, of ethnicity, of us versus them. We must teach our children the truth — not to divide them, but to protect them.

“If you know where you’ve been, you’ll walk more carefully into tomorrow,” an elderly woman says, clutching a faded photo of her husband lost during Uganda’s turbulent past.

A vision of peace

Let the 2,405 skulls be our council of wisdom. Let them remind us that no power is worth the price of blood.

Let them be our teachers, whispering from the soil: Live together. Forgive. Love. Remember. As Ugandans, we must rise above fear. We must rise above vengeance. We must rise for peace.

“Harmony is not silence. It is singing in different voices, but in one spirit.” May the leaders of today carry this message into their hearts. Into policy. Into action. May the hearts of all Ugandans remain tender enough to be moved by skulls in the earth.

And may Gombe never have to add another. Let Gombe not be just a place of mourning. Let it be a school of memory.

A shrine of vigilance. A call to action. Because what happened there was not a tragedy of the past. It is a warning to the future.

Never again — because we remember. Because we must. Because we are Uganda.

Let this be our vow: Never again. Not in our name. Not on our land. Not to our people. Let Gombe speak — and let the whole world listen.

The writer is a commissioner, Uganda Human Rights Commission