MP Tinkasimire's wife dies

By Vision Reporter

The wife of Buyaga MP Barnabas Tinkasimire has died from severe burns after spending five days in an intensive care unit at Mulago Hospital, police says.

Agnes Ageno Tinkasimire, aged 40, breathed her last Sunday night at the national referral health facility where she had slipped into a coma since Tuesday last week.

Police spokesperson, Judith Nabakooba confirmed the death.

She sustained multiple injuries when unidentified assailants torched their house in Mukono early Tuesday morning.

The yet-to-be-identified attackers torched the house with its occupants – Ageno and a househelp – at around 3am, neighbours reported.

But the officer in charge of Bweyogerere Fire brigade station, Fred Sserwanga, said the incident happened at around 2am.

According to Sserwanga, the arsonists used petrol to light the fire.

Some of the neighbours suspected that the attackers had poured petrol around the house, tied a cotton cord around to convey the fire, and dipped one end in a jerrycan of petrol before lighting the cord.

They are also said to have placed sachets of pounded red pepper, to allegedly deter rescuers from breaking the door to save the family.

“By the time we came the fire had blown out of proportion and the flames were too high. We were coughing and our eyes itching as a result of the red pepper that was used,” says James Mugerwa, a neighbour.

The incident has since been tossed into a sea of controversy over who and what could have inspired it.

While some people say it could be a family affair, others are linking it to the recent role of the parliamentary committee on presidential affairs in the demolition of the city structures.

The committee days before the fire incident had ordered that all illegal structures in Kampala be demolished.

Legislator Tinkasimire heads that committee.

He is reported to have received death threats following that decision by the committee.

"I have not done anything beyond my jurisdiction.  I live in the city and by the law like any other Ugandan. But you choose to visit my house and burn it down when all my family is inside? Who does that?” he questioned.

In what seemed like an attack on his family, the legislator had also asked for protection from the police.

Tinkasimire also had said that the attackers also broke into his brother's house.

"So, I don't know which house or relative of mine they are targeting now. I am a young man and I don't want to lose my property just like that.”