By Eliot Owen Ojambo,
REGIONAL
The media fraternity is mourning the untimely death of renown Soroti based freelance photojournalist Milton Opaco, who has passed on Friday morning.
According to reports, Opaco, in his 50s collapsed on a Boda Boda on which he was travelling while going to cover a meeting by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at Landmark Hotel in Lira City. He was announced dead few minutes later after rushing him to the hospital.
The news of his death was first broken by his brother, Benon Oketch who said that Opaco woke up on Friday morning in good health.
“He was watching news updates on his station this morning and he told me to go open the shop, he told me that he had a meeting to cover and would join me later in the day,” Said Oketch.
He said that he also received a phone call from a boda- boda rider that his brother had collapsed on the way to Landmark Hotel.
“I rushed to where he collapsed and found him sweating and complaining of headache. We rushed him to Joint Clinic but we were referred to Soroti Regional Referral Hospital where he was pronounced dead just 10 minutes after he was put on oxygen.” Oketcha explained.
Other reports indicate that Opaco has been a known patient of diabetes and high blood pressure something that could have resulted in to his death.
A family member who preferred anonymity told Parrots UG that some time back, Opaco got a stroke due to the aforementioned diseases but it was well managed.
Oketcha however noted that the deceased had not complained of any health issues lately stating that his death creates anxieties to the family.
As part of his journalism career, Opaco worked with Etop Newspaper, a regional Ateso newspaper under the Vision Group that was phased off in 2020.
He then joined Nation Media Group as a freelance journalist under NTV where he is believed to have been working till the time of his death although there are speculations that he had stopped working with NTV a while ago.
By press time, NTV had not come out to give an offocial statement on Opaco’s death. His body is still at Soroti Regional Hospital mortuary waiting to be taken to his ancenstral home in Agago district.
Doctors at Soroti hospital are yet to release a post-mortem report.
