Kiiza sent off with five-gun salute
Aug 12, 2005
Cpl. Hassan Kiiza was honoured as a gallant soldier of the Presidential Guard Brigade with a five-gun salute that left several unsuspecting mourners scampering for safety.
By Nicholas Kajoba
Cpl. Hassan Kiiza was honoured as a gallant soldier of the Presidential Guard Brigade with a five-gun salute that left several unsuspecting mourners scampering for safety.
At the graveside, his body was removed from the casket and put in an Islamic cloth before burial.
Kiiza, 29, and six others died in a plane crash in the Imatong hills, southern Sudan on July 30.
Drama ensued at the ceremony when two women claiming to be the deceased’s wives demanded a share of the sh3m sent by President Yoweri Museveni to the bereaved family.
UPDF officers handed over sh500,000 to the deceased’s father, Muhammad Kimuli.
Hardly had the burial ceremony been finalised when two unidentified women approached Kayunga RDC Margaret Balyehuki and energy minister Syda Bbumba, who represented the Government, with three children.
“These are Corporal Kiiza’s children. We also need assistance to cater for them,†the two women pleaded as they knelt near Bbumba and Balyehuki.
Bbumba read out the President’s speech to mourners at Kiiza’s ancestral burial grounds at Nakubyaaki, Baale sub-county, Kayunga district on Thursday. She handed over the sh3m to the widow, Dorothy Namazzi.
Balyehuki asked the deceased’s mother, Nakimuli, to ascertain whether the three children the two women had come with were her grandchildren so that she (Balyehuki) could divide the money among them and the official widow. She later got the money from Namazzi and gave the two women sh500,000 each and sh1m to Namazzi. The balance was given to the deceased’s other family members.
Mourners included ministers Isaac Musumba and Florence Nayiga and MPs Kakooko Ssebagereka, Sulaiman Madaada and the UPDF director of medical services, Dr. James Makumbi.
Cpl. Hassan Kiiza was honoured as a gallant soldier of the Presidential Guard Brigade with a five-gun salute that left several unsuspecting mourners scampering for safety.
At the graveside, his body was removed from the casket and put in an Islamic cloth before burial.
Kiiza, 29, and six others died in a plane crash in the Imatong hills, southern Sudan on July 30.
Drama ensued at the ceremony when two women claiming to be the deceased’s wives demanded a share of the sh3m sent by President Yoweri Museveni to the bereaved family.
UPDF officers handed over sh500,000 to the deceased’s father, Muhammad Kimuli.
Hardly had the burial ceremony been finalised when two unidentified women approached Kayunga RDC Margaret Balyehuki and energy minister Syda Bbumba, who represented the Government, with three children.
“These are Corporal Kiiza’s children. We also need assistance to cater for them,†the two women pleaded as they knelt near Bbumba and Balyehuki.
Bbumba read out the President’s speech to mourners at Kiiza’s ancestral burial grounds at Nakubyaaki, Baale sub-county, Kayunga district on Thursday. She handed over the sh3m to the widow, Dorothy Namazzi.
Balyehuki asked the deceased’s mother, Nakimuli, to ascertain whether the three children the two women had come with were her grandchildren so that she (Balyehuki) could divide the money among them and the official widow. She later got the money from Namazzi and gave the two women sh500,000 each and sh1m to Namazzi. The balance was given to the deceased’s other family members.
Mourners included ministers Isaac Musumba and Florence Nayiga and MPs Kakooko Ssebagereka, Sulaiman Madaada and the UPDF director of medical services, Dr. James Makumbi.