A person has been killed and several other wounded. The attack was aimed at “members and spies of the Government of Ugandan crossed”, according to a statement.
Le Monde with AFP and Reuters
The Islamic State group (EI) claimed to have conducted a bomb attack in the Ugandan capital Kampala, who has made at least one death and several wounded on the evening of Saturday, October 23, according to a statement published Sunday via a Affiliated account on Telegram messaging. The action was conducted in a popular restaurant in the Komamboga district where were “members and spies of the Government of Ugandan crossed”, says the text.
According to the Ugandan police spokesman Fred Enanga, the alleged authors of the attack arrived around 8:30 pm (17 h 30 GMT), carrying a plastic bag they placed under a table. “The suspects triggered the explosion of the machine shortly after leaving the place”, about thirty minutes after their arrival, he explained, describing an explosive “summary” craft containing nails and pieces of metal.
The explosion cost the life in Emily Nyinaneza, a 20-year-old waitress. Three wounded were hospitalized, including two in critical condition. A national curfew to fight against the Pandemic of Covid-19 is still in effect from 19 hours in Uganda, but it is not uniformly respected.
A few hours before the attack is claimed, President Yoweri Museveni had indicated on his Twitter account: “It seems to be a terrorist act. (…) The population has no fear to have, We will come to the end of this crime as we have come to the end of the others, committed by pigs who do not respect human life. “
Several attacks in a few months
The country has already state the target of the jihadist group several times. On October 8, the Islamic State Organization (EI) claimed a bomb attack against a police station in Kawempe, near the Saturday’s explosion.
In August, Uganda claimed to have foiled a suicide bombing targeting the national funeral of a gradé of the army, Paul Lokech, who had led the struggle in Somalia against Chabab Islamist rebels related to Al-Qaida, as commander of the operation of the African Union in this country, AMISOM.
He also participated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at an operation of the Ugandan army against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Muslim rebel group appeared in Uganda but who has been foul for nearly thirty years in DRC, where he is accused of killing thousands of civilians. President Museveni had imputed the attempt at attack at General Lokech’s funeral at “ADF terrorists”.
The EI presents ADFs as its branch in Central Africa. In March, the United States placed this group on the list of “terrorist organizations” affiliated with the EI.
A very tense context
In July, the Ugandan police had announced having arrested four suspects and killed a fifth in the investigation of an attempt at an assassination against the Minister of Transport and former head of the army, General Edward Katumba Wamala, charged to a “terrorist cell”. The suspects had trained with the ADFs in the DRC and had “started reactivating local terrorist cells” in Uganda, affirmed the police.
General Katumba Wamala had been injured by bullets the June north of Kampala by masked bikers who had attacked his vehicle, killing his daughter and one of his bodyguards.
In 2010, two bomb attacks in Kampala aimed at supporters assisting the final of the Football World Cup had made 76 dead. They had been claimed by the Somali Chabab and seen as retaliation for the participation of Uganda at AMISOM.
This new attack intervenes in a very tense context. Ten months after the disputed re-election of Yoweri Museveni for a sixth term, repression against the opposition continues. Friday, six members of Afiego (Africa Institute for Energy Governance), one of the main local NGOs against Total Energy Oil Operations in the Lake Albert region, had been arrested on Friday, October 22 and placed in Detention in a Kampala police station. AFIEGO is one of the fifty-four NGOs closed by the Ugandan authorities in August for alleged infringements of legislation.