What will Alalo's final resting place be?

Christine Alalo's mother, Janet Atubo Etori and an elder of the Imoratok Irarak clan, Esther Amato, have said that she had hinted to them on separate occasions where she should be laid to rest.

Atubo said that after the burial of Alalo's husband, Alex Kamujuni, who passed away in a motor accident in 2003, her daughter told her that she should be buried in her paternal village of Acut-Kalaki central in Kalaki sub-county in Kaberamaido district in case she died.

Alalo a commissioner of Police working with AMISOM in Somalia was one of the 157 people who died in Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines plane crash.

She is a daughter of Stanley Elwoku Etori, a retired health assistant worker. Etori did much of his civil service in Soroti and Moroto for long before he retired.

Christine Alalo passed away in Sunday's plane crash. AMISOM Photo

Currently, Elwoku is sickly and has been living at his daughter's home in Seeta, Mukono district.

"My daughter told me that she should be buried in Kalaki. She told me this after the death of her husband in an accident," Atubo said of the conversation she had 15 years ago.

She said that her daughter believed that if buried in Kalaki, it would allow her mother if still alive, to maintain and keep her graveyard well.

Atubo said when she heard of this information from her daughter; she did not take it seriously because she did not know between the two of them who would die first.

However, she said she kept it to herself and later shared it with her husband.

She said she feared to share it with many people as her culture does not support discussion of people's burial when they are still alive.

Clan elder Esther Amato (left) and Alalo's aunt Gladys Amalo. Photo by Michael Onyinge

"Now that death has occurred, my daughter should be buried where she told me such that I fulfil what she told me when I am still alive. I will need to clean and keep her graveyard well and not make it bushy as she had told me earlier on. I feel in my heart that I have that debt to fulfil since Alalo told me this fifteen years ago when she did not know her fate. This could have been God who made her tell me this and He knew it before," Atubo narrated.

Last communication

Atubo said that the last time she communicated with her daughter was by phone at the beginning of March when Alalo was in Italy.

"She greeted me and asked me how the home was and how I was doing in the village. I wished her well and also prayed for her," Atubo reminisced.

She said she last saw her daughter in November 2018 and that she had promised to go and visit her son, Emmanuel Ayindi, who is studying in Canada. Alalo is survived by two sons; Ayindi and Alvin Asimwe who is a senior five student.

The country home that Alalo built in Kaberamaido. Photo by Michael Onyinge

Amato said that during Alalo's last visit to the Kaberamaido home, she asked to be taken to see the ancestral graveyard.

She said Alalo was interested in seeing the grave of her paternal grandmother.

"It is from there where she told me that if she died, she should be buried where her grandmother was buried," Amato said.

"I told her not to always talk about death. I even asked her why she was talking to me about where she should be buried if she died," Amato narrated.

She said when the news of Alalo's death reached her, all she could remember was the discussion they had about burial.

Alalo's youngest brother, Emmanuel Ocung, said that much as clues have come up on Alalo's wish on where she wanted to be buried, they want to reach an understanding with her husband's relatives.

The chairperson of the Imoratok Irarak clan also said they want to discuss the matter with the relatives of Alalo's late husband.