Kyankwanzi, Uganda — A 22-year-old woman from Ntewe in Kyankwanzi District who alleged she had been abducted and tortured following Uganda’s recent elections has died, raising fresh concerns among activists and leaving critical questions unanswered.
Nakibuuka Irene claimed that on January 15, while discussing election results with two other young women, they were seized by masked security personnel believed to be army officers. According to her account, the group was detained in an undisclosed location for nearly a month.
“She said they were injected with unknown substances, made to spend nights in water, and kept naked,” activist Agather Atuhaire said in a statement shared online. “She repeated this exact same story when she was later interviewed.”
Irene said she was released on February 14. With support from activists including Yub Denis, she was taken to Mulago National Referral Hospital for medical examination.
Preliminary test results revealed that she had multiple serious health conditions, including HIV, tuberculosis with pleural effusion, ascites, and Kaposi sarcoma. However, activists noted that it remained unclear whether these illnesses were contracted during her alleged detention or were pre-existing conditions worsened by her circumstances.
“We hadn’t independently verified what she said, nor do we know whether she contracted those illnesses after being kidnapped,” Atuhaire said. “Or if the conditions she was kept in simply aggravated already existing conditions.”
According to those who assisted her, Irene later left the hospital before completing treatment and declined further care.
“She had given up on life,” Atuhaire added.
Her death has sparked emotional reactions online, with some commentators linking her case to broader concerns about political intolerance and alleged human rights abuses in the aftermath of elections.
“For them it’s just politics, for another family it is a loved one gone,” said cartoonist Jim Spire Ssentongo in a social media post. “Can we ever have peace where we’ve inflicted such pointless permanent pain on others?”
Despite the public outcry, there has been no official confirmation of Irene’s alleged abduction, and authorities have not commented on the matter.
Her passing leaves unresolved questions about accountability, the treatment of civilians in politically tense periods, and the challenges of verifying claims that emerge through social media in Uganda’s evolving information landscape.
