BLACK CLOUDS: Police in Nansana Municipality in Wakiso District are investigating circumstances under which a 12-year-old girl is said to have committed suicide.
The deceased identified as Alisat Nantume, a resident of Gganda-Nansana Municipality Wakiso District yesterday Monday at around 10:00Am was found hanging on a rope in the house where she was staying with her aunt.
Her siblings said she had earlier on threatened to commit suicide for reportedly being assigned “too much” house chores.
Local residents blamed the incidence ongovernment’s delays to reopen schools while others blamed the guardians who allegedly assign hard activities to children.
Luke Owoyesigire, the police Spokesperson KMP said that police was called at the scene and the body was retrieved to the central mortuary at Mulago.
“Police retrieved the body and took it to City Mortuary, Mulago for postmortem as investigations surrounding the minor’s death continue,”
Cases of suicide involving juveniles are on a rise in Uganda since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown with cases registered in Wakiso and Mukono districts. Nantume’s case is a third reported suicide case so far recorded in this month.
On June 12, 2020, a 7-year-old Derrick Waderu, aresidents of Nantabulirwa village in Goma Division, Mukono district reportedly died while trying to imitate a movie he had watched with his brother. He used a shoe lace to hang himself on a decker bed after his mother Ms Hannah Tumwekwase instructed him to mop the house after lunch. On looking for him, the brother found him hanging on the decker bed. He was rushed to a nearby hospital only to be pronounced dead on arrival.
Another incident is of a 16-year-old boy in Mukono Municipality reportedly locked himself in a latrine where he committed suicide moments after he was caught red handed by a step mother defiling his six-year-old step sister.
Weeks ago, the police Deputy Spokesperson Polly Namaye while briefing the media at Uganda Media Centre in Kampala warned against escalating cases of suicide in Kampala metropolitan in the corona virus lockdown.
Namaye blamed the rise in suicidal cases on domestic violence, child labour to mention but a few. She appealed to public to be law abiding to fight COVID-19.
“We urge the members of the public to remain lawful as we fight COVID-19,” she appealed to the public.
