Kanungu Massacre: The eyewitness accounts

Monday, March 17, 2025, marked 25 years since the Kanungu inferno, which claimed over 1,000 followers of the Movement for the Restoration of 10 Commandments. It was led by Joseph Kibwetere, a former catechist and his two associates, Fr Dominic Kataribabo and Sr Credonia Mwerinde. We explore some of the testimonies of the eyewitnesses

Two years ago, Peter Ahimbisibwe, who was a child at the time of the Kanungu massacre, narrated to New Vision how he narrowly survived dying, along with his mother, two sisters and four relatives in the fire.

“I still fear that place, because every time I bring journalists and tourists here, my legs get swollen soon after,” he intimates.

Ahimbisibwe was in the church, but early that morning, he was allowed to go and get food at home, which was not far away. At home, his stubborn father, Koruneriyo Banagaho, who had adamantly refused to join the cult but was somehow too powerless to stop his wife and children, prevented him from going back. That is how he survived.

Banagaho still remembers many details of that fateful day.

“It was my daughter, Maria Namara, who called me asking if I had heard what had happened at the fellowship site across the hill,” he said.

That day, he lost seven people: his wife Maria Gorret Kenoheri, two daughters — Sylvia and Fortunate — and four relatives.

I used to work there

“I used to do menial jobs for Mwerinde, like digging her gardens and pit latrines, especially as the number of her followers kept swelling,” Banagaho said.

“We used to see sick people, but we did not know how they disappeared and never be heard of again. Even when we would dig pit latrines and wake up in the morning to find them covered up with the soil, we didn’t suspect anything. They would say they had changed their minds about the latrine. Later, they found out that the pits were mass graves,” he narrated.

Banagaho said Ahimbisibwe would follow her mother wherever she went. He was just lucky that he survived.

“I refused to join! My wife used to try to recruit me. She would come along with a man called Musinguzi and spend time trying to convince me. I almost joined them, but when they mentioned selling my land, I refused,” he said.

Kibwetere’s wife

Kibwetere’s wife, Theresa, had fallen out with the husband at the time of the tragedy.

In an interview with New Vision in 2000, she said: “These women (Mwetinde and Ursala) would say they had a vision that we wanted to put poison in their food and that we should be beaten for it. My husband, who had never laid a hand on us, started beating us. This was unbelieveable. I fought them out of my home after one of them doused my clothes in paraffin and burnt them. My husband ordered the Police to arrest my son and denied him food.”

Kanungu mayor speaks

Kanungu town council mayor Godfrey Karabenda, who has held many leadership positions in the area, says the cult had money and had even started putting up shops in the area and Bushenyi.

“They started their own businesses. They had started a school with pupils from the followers, including a branch in Kampala. There was this school at Nyabugoto in Kanunugu, which they opened in 1998. It had many children, but towards the year 2000, they ceased to be serious about teaching. Some of us had complained about the school because, instead of teaching, the children were being used to dig in the sugarcane farms,” he said.

Karabenda referred to 1999, when the leaders ordered believers to stop talking. He thinks it was to stifle those who wanted to ask questions.

Many were asking for their money back to go restart life or even rebuy the lands they had sold to join the cult “This is when the elimination started. The vocal ones were killed quietly, many being shifted to Bushenyi to be buried there. They would say so and so is going to take the message of the Virgin Mary to Kampala and that would be the end. They were being reduced without their knowledge. We told government people: please, something must be wrong with these people who do not talk! ” he said.

Karabenda said he took some of the children, who reported to him that they were not studying and had run out of food, to Rukungiri district council where he was a councillor.

“They were emaciated. That day, even the resident district commissioner, Kitaka Gawera Gataka, was present. I showed them the children and the whole council was in shock.

They visited the school and found that what I was saying was true. They actually found children digging in a sugarcane plantation. And the children could not talk; they were not allowed to. Teachers do not talk, so how do they teach? The council got convinced that something was wrong,” he narrated.

Karabenda said they recommended that the school be stopped and, indeed, it was closed in 1999.

How they died

Karabenda said on Thursday March 16, the day before they perished, they had a very big celebration. They ate and drank soda, like it was their last supper.

“They had invited us to their Easter celebrations, but I think they knew we would not find them there. So, the next day, around 11:00am, everybody was called to the church and the doors were closed.

We later discovered that Fr Kataribabo had brought in 20 jerry cans of acid which he was seen unloading the previous evening at the old church, which was now being used as classroom. A one Kagangura, who was calling everybody outside to come in, was saying the Virgin Mary was about to come. They were told kneel and receive the Virgin Mary.

They lit candles around the church and started singing.

That is when someone ignited the fire and there was a very loud blast!” he narrated.

This was at about 9:30am. Police recorded a witness statement from one Didan Rutemba, who said he was out early to till his garden that bordered the site.

Rutemba said he first heard a loud blast from the church and saw huge black smoke rise through the roof. He rushed to scene to find people locked in and screaming for help.

In his book tiled The Kanungu Tragedy: Details of related discoveries about the Movement for the Restoration of the 10 Commandments of God, Fr Dr Narcisio Bagumisiriza interviewed witnesses and survivors.

Rutemba told Fr Bagumisiriza: “I was working about half a kilometre away. I arrived at 10:00am. When I cast eyes on the camp, I did not see anybody. Then I wondered whether they could have gone away,” he said.

He said, after about 15 minutes, he heard a loud blast, then he saw fire.

“I heard screams, especially of children. A big flame of fire was on top of the building, as the screaming went on.”

Rutemba said he saw only one person at the camp when he arrived, a woman who spoke only Rutooro called Annet Kamakune. She had come to see her parents and had spent the night at the camp. She had been left in the visitor’s room.

“Emmanuel Tibumpaire also arrived at the camp. We all went to the Police to report, after which, the Police and the Rev Mutazindwa Amooti, the deputy RDC, came to the site,” Rutemba narrated.

He also said it appeared that the victims had abandoned what they were doing when they entered their “church”.

Rutemba said they had abandoned clothes in basins with detergent. There were unwashed plates besides washed ones and unlaid beds in the houses.

Asked who arrived first, Rutemba said they were: himself, a former policeman and wildlife management staff Byaruhanga (son of T. Barisigara), Mrs E. Tibumpaire, Police officers from Kanungu, the Rev. Mutazindwa Amooti, Godfrey Karabenda (cadre and councillor LC I — Kirima) and Stephen Mujuni (member of the local defence unit).

The same book indicated that Rosemary Nyakato, from Nyamigoye village in Kihiihi, lost nine family members.

Nyakato was not fully with the cult, because her father had not blessed her joining, despite the mother’s persuasion. She visited mainly during some weekends.

From the time she started visiting the camp, the dominant doctrine was the end-time message.

On the D-day, a person who was meant to pick her did not find her. She had gone to visit her father in Bunyaruguru. So, they left her a written message.

The message said there was going to be a feast to open the new church and also that her mother desired to see her urgently. They said they would foot her transport costs.

Nyakato arrived home on March 17, read the message and travelled quickly by taxi to Kanungu, where she arrived at about 2:00pm after the tragedy. She wept that she had been left behind.

25 years later: How Kanungu tragedy unfolded
Kanungu Massacre: The making of Joseph Kibwetere