Nairobi, Jan 23 (EFE).- The head of Uganda’s Army, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, stated that the country’s security forces detained around 2,000 opposition supporters and killed 30 people following the Jan 15 presidential elections, in which his father, President Yoweri Museveni, was re-elected for a seventh term.
“So far we have killed 30 NUP terrorists,” wrote Kainerugaba overnight on the social network X, referring to the National Unity Platform (NUP), the main opposition party, led by former presidential candidate and musician Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine.
“Most NUP terrorist leaders are in hiding. We shall get them all,” he added in another message, without specifying the circumstances of the deaths.
Kainerugaba, the son of the Ugandan president and commander-in-chief of the country’s Defense Forces, described the opposition as “terrorists” and offered figures on the detentions and fatalities after the elections for the first time.
Museveni, 81, was declared the winner of the elections, which took place amid an internet blackout. He secured 71.65% of the vote against Wine, 43, who came in second with 24.72%. The opposition leader slammed the announced “fake results” on his social media Wine remains missing after alleging that his residence on the outskirts of Kampala, the capital, was raided by police and the army last Friday night.
Meanwhile, the government has accused NUP supporters of instigating disturbances during the electoral process, claiming that its own members were the ones who suffered attacks from security forces.
Four days after the elections, a coalition of about 70 pan-African organizations and regional civil society leaders denounced that the results were a “manufactured fiction” and accused Museveni of perpetrating “a militarized electoral coup.”
The Pan-African Solidarity Network stated in a joint communiqué that the Uganda Electoral Commission “poisoned” the electoral registers with duplicates of people, biometric data of deceased people, minors, and “ghosts,” meaning non-existent individuals.
Furthermore, they accused the Army and “special security units” of turning the electoral process into a “military operation,” during which, according to the statement, at least fifty people died and thousands of citizens remain detained or missing.
EFE has been unable to independently verify the allegations made by both parties.
Museveni came to power in 1986 after leading a guerrilla war that overthrew his predecessor, Tito Okello, ending a two-decade cycle of political instability. EFE
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