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KIKUUBE - Leaders in Kikuube district have called on the government to consider buying land elsewhere and settling the over 2000 evictees of Bukinda parish in Kyangwali sub-county, Kikuube district. 

Speaking about the suffering of the evictees, Kikuube Resident District Commissioner (RDC) Amlan Tumusiime said that the evictees have suffered enough and advised the government to secure land in another place and settle these people if the government has failed to resettle them back to their land.

The 2000 people are part of over 60,000 people who were evicted by the Office of the Prime Minister in 2013 seeking to expand the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement. They are feuding over 36 square kilometres of land. 

In 2022, a group of 2000 evictees including children, women, men and older persons pitched a camp at Alex Tumusiime’s land located adjacent to the office of the Kikuube RDC Amlan Tumusiime as they waited for the government to return them back to their land in vain.

However, last year, Alex Tumusiime pushed the evictees out of the camp where they had been staying for about two years on the ground that he wanted to start using his land.

After their eviction from the camp, the group pitched camp at the land belonging to Kikuube district woman MP Florence Natumanya, where they are currently putting up.

RDC Tumusiime noted that several people including former Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda and Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja have intervened and attempted to settle the dispute in vain.

He noted that over 10 evictees including children have died in Kizirianfumbi town council because of the poor living conditions adding that since 2022, they survive on handouts, which has left the children malnourished.

He added that they are also enduring night coldness and lack of proper medication.

The RDC noted that the government has capacity to get land to settle them adding that women’s and children’s rights have been violated in this camp.

“If the government can get land elsewhere and settle these people, it will be the lasting solution, I know that we cannot fail to get land, mind you these people are also Ugandans so they need to consider,” he said.

Vicente Opio, the Kikuube district vice chairman said that as district leaders, they are concerned over the continued suffering of these people adding that the directive of President Museveni to resettle these people back to their land has not worked.

He noted that the government should secure land and settle the evictees if resettling them back to their land has failed.

Opio proposed that the government should get a piece of land from Bugoma Forest Reserve and settle people instead of leaving them suffering as if they were not Ugandans.

“The suffering of these people is beyond, I do not know why the directive of the President and courts to resettle these people have failed, we do not know the problem is, we appealing to the government to get land in another place and settle them,” he said.

MP Natumanya called on the government to intervene, adding thousands of women in these camps whose rights have been violated and there is no one to help them.

She noted the evictees are living miserable lives and women no longer exercise their rights as other Ugandan women.

“Most of these women have been abandoned with children by their husbands, they have no land where they can cultivate and have food for their children, and these women are living on the mercy of God,” she said, adding that there is a need for the government to intervene and save the situation.

The Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness, and Refugees, Hillary Onek, recently visited Kikuube district and ordered the district security committee to flush out the evictees from the area (camp) adding that the evictees have no land in Bukinda.

He noted that the Bukinda land belongs to the government land with a title since 1960 and advised them to go back to the land where the government resettled them.

Onek noted that the evictees are being incited and mobilised by district leaders such as councillors and area MPs to protest against the government for their personal interest.

He noted that the government resettled the evictees on land located in Kyeya and each family was given 2.5 acres but instead of settling and developing the land they decided to move to Kiziranfumbi and pitched a camp in the area. 

Julius Twenomugisha, the chairman of the evictees in the camp rejected minister Onek’s statements, noting that as residents, they needed to be taken back to their land, adding that residents refused to take up the two acres of land as it was infertile, rocky and too small compared to the land they owned.