Two more Rwandans who had been detained and incarcerated without access to consular services in Uganda returned home after bearing intense torture at the hands of Ugandan authorities. Elia Muhawe and Emmanuel Hitimana are the latest torture victims of Ugandan authorities to be dumped at the border. Hitimana who arrived in Rwanda on Wednesday last week had travelled for a family visit in Ntungamo District in western Uganda. He had lived there since 2017. “When I arrived in Uganda, my brother asked me to help him out at his wholesale shop. I did that until I decided to come back home this year,” a resident of Rwinkwavu in Kayonza District narrates. The 22-year old says he was detained as he was trying to cross the border back to Rwanda in April this year. “Border officials at the Ugandan side asked me how I had been living in Uganda and I told them I had a six-month clearance…they took me to court and said I would serve three-month prison term to which I accepted,” he says. However, the three-month sentence turned into nearly eight months of illegal detention and torture. “I vividly remember prison officers coming to me, telling me that Ugandans were being unfairly treated in Rwanda that I should bear the price. They put small metallic bars between my fingers and started squeezing them,” Hitimana recounted his ordeal. Hitimana says he was also convinced to be recruited into Kayumba Nyamwasa’s rebel group, which he refused saying he was not ready to join someone who’s a threat to the country. Muhawe, 21, had on the other hand stayed in Uganda since January this year. “I worked at a farm in Ntungamo for seven months, before I started a small scale business of selling chapati. That is where I was picked by Police officers,” he explains. A resident of Rwimiyaga village in Nyagatare District says the Police handcuffed him and took him to a police station from where he was allegedly told that he was among many suspected spies of Rwanda. “They beat me to the core and forced me into the prison. I was confined into a tiny room for five days before I was taken to Ntungamo Prison,” he says. Muhawe was detained from September 20 to November 12. The two are part of hundreds of Rwandans who have been subjected to illegal arrest, torture and killing by Uganda over alleged illegal stay in the country. Rwanda says these illegal detentions and mistreatment is the reason the Government has advised its citizens not to travel to Uganda. At the heart of these unlawful detentions and mistreatment are hostile activities conducted by terrorist organisations that seek to destabilise Rwanda. These are activities supported by the Ugandan Government, Rwanda says. Rwandan officials have continued to call on Uganda to halt all collaboration with terrorist groups hostile to Rwanda including the Rwanda National Congress (RNC). They have urged the Ugandan Government to use lawful means to bring to justice any Rwandans suspected of breaking the law, but in vain. Rwanda and Uganda reached an agreement to restore political and trade ties in Luanda, Angola in mid-August. Despite efforts to normalize relations, officials say Uganda still carry out unlawful detentions and continues to harbour enemies hostile to Rwanda. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
