‘I lost my manhood’

BY JUDE KAFUUMA

Enock Ngomya’s wife ran away after he lost his manhood. “I left him because of constant teasing by other women.

They used to say: ‘you are two women in the house’. But I occasionally visit him,” says Topista Namarome, who had two children with Ngomya. “The two children we had are both girls. I wish to have a baby boy but how can I have one with him?”

Ngomya, 38, lost his private parts as his bosses kicked him left and right. On Tuesday the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) ruled that Government should pay him sh31m in compensation for the damage.

Apart from losing his manhood Ngomya, who works at the army eastern region headquarters in Mbale as a mortuary attendant, cannot do physical work.

“My situation is very bad. I have worked for 10 years in the army mortuary and since the torture, I am working under a lot of pain. I beg to retire. I am too weak to continue with this work.”

On March 27, 2004 at 7:00am, during a parade, two soldiers from the Field Artillery section informed him that a child had died in a uniport. He was asked to remove the body and take it to the mortuary.

Ngomya received two conflicting commands from his superiors. While one asked him to go to the parade, another ordered him to attend to the body of a child who had died.

“When I went to the medical office to get a coffin and a blanket for the body, the four soldiers arrested me. The medical officer asked them to let me attend to the body but they refused. They took me to the quarter guard where I was beaten.”

“One of them stepped on my lower abdomen very hard and I fainted. I bled heavily through the penis. My trousers were soaked with blood. They put me on a stretcher and carried me to a dispensary.”

Ngomya spent 10 days in Kakiri dispensary from where he was referred to Mbuya military hospital and later to Mulago hospital for an operation. But his condition did not improve.

While making the ruling on Tuesday, the UHRC described the beating inflicted on Ngomya as illegal, oppressive, highhanded, unprovoked, deliberate, malicious, barbaric, savage, extremely cruel, gruesome and completely unjustifiable. The Commission also described the incidence as an action of evil men, who are sadists.

Ngomya was recruited in the army by army in 1998 and assigned to attend to the mortuary. He was taken to Mulago for training and came out with a certificate.

This certificate, he said, is his only academic document on which his superiors based his salary raise and elevated him to the level of first mortuary attendant at the Mbale army division.

“After the dreadful incident, they wanted to transfer me to the records office, but they found that I was illiterate. So now I direct people on how to treat the bodies then I do the last part. But still I feel very uncomfortable because every short while I have to empty the glove.”

He continues to get medical treatment and has to constantly pad himself to take care of his endless flow of urine that is collected in a glove he wears with a string tied around the waist.

Because he cannot do physical work, Ngomya pays for every service right from bathing to dressing and eating. He also hires casual labourers to help cultivate his land and grow cassava and yams which he sells to support his family.

“I still get shillings 200,000 as my salary from the army. I use it all for my medication and to pay people who help me. At least if they gave me sh50m, it would have helped me and my family.”

“This is a ruling on the violation of my right to protection of my freedom and from inhuman, degrading treatment. But how is it going to help me live a happy life? My wife abandoned me. I am lonely. no woman can stand my situation.”

When he was still healthy, Ngomya started a fish farming project to support his family on top of his salary. The project, however, is no more.

With such difficulties, Ngomya’s wish is that he gets retired from the army.