No fewer than 15 people, mainly women, and children have been confirmed dead in a landslide that occurred in a western Ugandan town yesterday after the area was battered by heavy rains, the Red Cross said.
The disaster which occurred in the town of Kasese on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo has left a yet-to-be-identified number of people missing and wiped out homes.
’15 bodies now. The majority are women and children,’ Red Cross spokeswoman Irene Nakasiita said in a briefing to the media. ‘Response action teams are still on the ground and the rescue mission is still ongoing.’
Nakasiita revealed that the exact number of missing at the moment was yet to be identified, but that six people had been injured and taken to hospital.
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Grisly photographs shared by the Red Cross showed some bodies stuck under collapsed houses, and at least one body carried away by the fast-flowing water.
Heavy rains in the neighbouring district of Bundibugyo killed three people last Friday and left several injured.
At least 22 people were killed in the eastern Ugandan town of Mbale after flash floods hit at the end of July, leading to mudslides that inflicted widespread damage and left hundreds of residents homeless.
In 2020 alone, eight people died in Kasese after heavy rains caused a river to burst its banks.
In another report, the recent inflation in Uganda has seen mixed reactions among political and social pundits as the Ugandan opposition leaders on Tuesday slammed the government’s decision to purchase limousines for senior parliament officials thereby putting much more attention to the country’s skyrocketing cost of living as inflation climbs.
The country of 45 million people has been hit hard by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, with food prices soaring in recent weeks as President Yoweri Museveni ignores calls for tax cuts and subsidies, urging citizens to live frugally instead.
