The Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) has made a physical to Kiteezi Landfill which witnessed a collapse of waste killing 30 people and leaving a number of homesteads buried underneath.
As part of its continuous programme of to monitoring the human rights situation in the country, the UHRC teams from both the headquarters – Lumumba Avenue, Nakasero and Central Regional Office – Naguru visited the area on Tuesday (August 20th).
“We have come to assess the human rights situation on the ground, the rescue effort on the ground and the conditions of the survivors,” Ms. Ruth Ssekindi, Director Monitoring and Inspection who led both teams explained to the security team on the ground before she and the members of her team were taken around.
An Officer from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) took the UHRC team to the exact scene where a team composed of seven excavators from OPM, the Uganda Police, the UPDF, the Uganda Red Cross and the locals in the area have been digging up heaps of rubbish to recover bodies or survivors still trapped under the mountain of rubbish.
The rescue team was apprehensive about the daunting task at hand given that the rubbish moved for over 3Km but they had so far covered less than a kilometre since the incident happened on Saturday August 10th, 2024. They specifically noted the watery base as one of the key hindrances to faster progression of the recovery effort.
The Commission team also visited the camp set up for survivors of the catastrophe at Kiteezi Church of Uganda Primary School where it interacted with the leaders of the Uganda Red Cross and also toured the various tents and assessed the observation of the right to food, clothing, health, clean environment, among others.
