18 years ago, government through the national army stormed Kaweri village and evicted people after awarding the land on which they sat to an investor. Many people lost all their property while others lost children. The children that died did as a result of pneumonia after getting exposed to coldness.
The people were left with no option but to sleep in tents with their children and its here that they contracted pneumonia. One of the women who lost two children says she lost everything because the eviction was sudden. “It happened in the night and abruptly, it was hard to even save clothes”. She then retreated to a tent where she spent some weeks before renting a one roomed house. The stories of the former residents of Kaweri Village are unimaginable.
18 years down the road, the then children are now demanding justice and that they be resettled. Many of them who turned into workers at Kaweri coffee plantation that sits on their former land say, they missed out on the basic rights like education. Enock Kato (not real names) says he was lucky because he was taken up by a government because of his football skills and made it but his twin brother died. “We were 12 years when this happened and I got a school that sponsored me by my brother died”.
Whenever such conflicts occur children are worst hit but little is said about them. The director High Sound for Children who also visited the affected residents says children should always be protected. The battle is not over and different civil society organizations visited the residents demanding for justice for the affected residents. The organizations that included Action aid Uganda, witnessradio.org, Uganda Land alliance among others say that all they want is government to pay damages of have the people resettled on their land.