The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda has recorded a reduction in deaths resulting from accidents, robberies and attacks, a trend attributed to the nighttime curfew, imposed at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown. The country has been under nighttime curfew since March 2020, when the lockdowns were announced, first starting at 7 p.m. and later adjusted to start at 9 p.m.
Pathologist Dr Moses Byaruhanga, who is also the Director of Police Medical Services says that they have noticed that numbers of people being killed in road accidents or by thugs have also greatly dropped, ever since Uganda declared curfew restricting night movements.
Byaruhanga said that before the restrictions police would conduct an average of 230 postmortems a month at the City Mortuary in Kampala. The numbers reduced to 40 during the lockdown.
Police said over the years, the majority of the bodies were taken to the mortuary for examination by police during night hours. This is when people have died in road accidents, and killed by thugs or robbers.
“But the most important thing this night curfew has helped is to reduce these cases. Most of the deaths would happen between 6 pm and 5 am. The numbers are high in the night because people drive while drunk, many are knocked staggering on roads because of alcohol, bar brawls are high and thugs are also moving in the night,” Dr Byaruhanga said.
However, Dr Byaruhanga said the trend has started rising again as some people are disobeying curfew restrictions and end up being attacked by a few criminal elements also walking in the night.
“When they started lifting the lockdown, the graph started to rise and now we get 160 bodies per month. A lot of evil things happen in the night. When these beaches were closed, cases of drowning reduced. When beaches are open, people take alcohol and end up drowning,” Dr Byaruhanga added.
Police in 2019 examined 8,685 bodies countrywide translating into 23 people being killed every day.
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