Suspected smugglers crash

TWO UPDF soldiers died instantly when an army vehicle they were using on a suspected cigarette smuggling mission over-turned on Busia-Majanji road on Monday night, reports Nathan Etengu. Two other passengers in the vehicle were critically injured and are admitted to Masafu Hospital. Police and Special Revenue Protection Services (SRPS) said the vehicle, H4 DF 066 belonging to the School of Infantry, Jinja was loaded with about 50 cartons of contraband Supermatch cigarettes. It overturned due to overspeeding. The dead were identified as Pte. Moses Karugaba and Cpl. Buyinza and the injured as Cpl. Albert Okiria and Cpl. Kizito. “Some of the cigarettes were looted by the community, while we only recovered about eight cartons,” an SRPS source said in Busia. He said they were still tracking down some of the villagers who looted the cigarettes. The extensively damaged vehicle was by Tuesday evening parked at Busia police station. The District Police Commander, Ms. Florence Kirabira, said her office was handling the accident while SRPS were handling the smuggling aspect of the case. SRPS personnel said some indisciplined UPDF soldiers have been assisting smugglers to convey their goods to urban centres. “They (soldiers) conceal the contraband as military supplies and convey them at odd hours,” the SRPS source said. Monday night’s incident came amid complaints of declining sales by British American Tobacco (BAT) company. BAT announced last month that its sales had dropped from 22 million cigarettes per month to 9.4 million. It reported that the most affected area was the eastern region where the sales had dropped by 63%.