Her big, round, and bright eyes, depict the innocence in her, Her little palms firmly hold a balloon, blown from a surgical glove, gently playing with it as she presses it against her mother’s face. Her little body lies on a small bed in ward 2C in Mulago hospital.
Although both her legs (the left one bandaged) are tied up, she still has a smile on her face as she plays with her closest friend-her mother. I can hardly get a word out of her when I extend my greeting; she simply looks at me in awe.
“She stares at everyone who comes here; because so many people come so she can’t differentiate between the doctors and visitors and yet she fears doctors. That is why she gets scared.” Her mother, Nabukenya Annet tells me.
It is exactly a week when, Patricia Namugumya, 3, was shot amidst confusion as police confronted protestors in Namasuba Kikajjo, along Entebbe road. This incident was one of the famous ones that rose public concern about police brutality during demonstrations.
She was holding her child and she witnessed her being shot and so she has the story to tell but as recounts the fateful day her child was shot, emotions somewhat drive her back to the scene although now she can smile a little bit as she speaks. She says;
The night prior to that day, my daughter had fallen sick; she had flu, cough and a high fever. In the morning, we woke up normally; I started my business of cassava frying as usual.
While I was attending to my stall, frying cassava, I heard over radio that demonstrations were in Kisekka market. I continued with my work because our place was still calm. By this time, Namugumya was inside the house sleeping, since she had been weak the whole night.
After a little while, I heard that a group of youth was blocking the roads around and that the demonstrations had reached Namasuba. We started quacking as we had noise of protestors increasing. A few minutes, the same group by passed us protesting and that they were going to burn down the police station at kikajjo. But police came after them unblocking the road and firing bullets.
As police fired at the boys, they in turn threw stones at them. And soon the situation kind of went out of hand. When the crowd started becoming too rowdy, police threw a teargas canister in the compound, near my stall; I ran into the house and locked ourselves in (house is by the road side).
Teargas had already filled the house, I was suffocating, my child was suffocating too, so I decided to get a piece of cloth, dipped it in water and tried to protect my child from the irritation and soothe it.
But the more I did it, the more she suffocated, may be because she had flu and cough. My child was suffocating to death, while I was also dying of the teargas. So I decided to run out of the house to get fresh air that could save my child’s life and mine.
I carried Namugumya on my side, trying to shield her from the tear gas, while I also suffocated badly, trying to run, but to wherever I did not know. As soon as I had reached the corner of the house, a police man standing at the opposite end put up his gun and shot my child.
He might have intended to shoot me since I was the only one there running, but when he shot, the bullet instead got the child. I cried even before he shot, he looked at me and I cried aloud, then he ran away, there was a nearby Patrol vehicle which he boarded and ran.
I was lost in deep confusion, not sure of what to do next, my child was bleeding to death, I simply cried shouting for help but before I could notice, some man I did not even know came and grabbed my kid and rushed it away. I sheepishly followed him to see where he was taking the child.
We finally arrived at the nearby health centre; the nurse quickly dressed the wound with cotton and asked us to rush the kid to Mulago. The Centre’s ambulance asked us for 100,000 up to Mulago, I did not have the money, there were many police vehicles but they all refused to help us. Finally, the man looked for a Bodaboda, onto which we sat and rushed to Mulago, but by this time, I was worn out and worried my kid might die.
As soon as we go to mulago, Namugumya fainted and they put her on oxygen. However, the doctors worked tirelessly on her, a group of them were around her and comforting me. At around 5pm, she was off the oxygen and conscious again although she still had a lot of pain. Doctors then took her to the theatre for the operation, and removed the bullet.
At the end of the story, Nabukenya breathes heavily in relief and says, “And here we are.”
Namugumya’s X-ray results indicate that the bullet passed through the bone and caused two simple fractures. The reason why the doctors tied up Namugumya’s leg up was to ensure quick rebuilding of the bone.
Apart from crying when she feels pain, Namugumya is greatly improving, according to her mother. She is still on medication and they are waiting on the doctors for the final word.
However, the one week spent in hospital has not been so easy as Nabukenya says “I don’t work now, yet I have to buy the prescribed medicine and food”
Nabukenya believes that the government has abandoned them, and has not given them any help and she says one of her uncles tried to sue Government, but Police said that Government had provided medicine and food for all the victims, something she disagrees with.
“But since I got in here, I have never received any food from the hospital, not even a piece of posho.”
She calls upon the government and people of good hearts to render some help to her because she is a single mother, who apparently cannot fend for her children and herself yet she is not sure of when she leaves hospital to go home and work again.
