It was silence, fear, and staring in the Old Taxi Park on Friday after a woman identified as Faridah Namyalo died quietly after battling depression for two. She was discovered dead by the Kampala Capital City Authority -KCCA team that notified Ben Kiwanuka Police Post.
Even though there were no visible symptoms of Ebola Virus Disease like blood oozing from various body openings, many people who were in the vicinity started murmuring and whispering that she might have succumbed to the contagious illness that has so far killed 48 Ugandans.
Police were able to identify the deceased by the National Identity Card that was found on her. The National ID indicated that she was a resident of Masajja, Makindye Ssabagabo, Wakiso district.
“She was very organised because she had her National ID and a notebook containing contacts of her relatives including her mother Aminah as number one on the list, and we have already notified her relatives about her death,” Kampala Police Spokesperson Patrick Onyango said.
Police has learnt that Namyalo had long abandoned her home in Masaka and decided to live around Old Taxi Park. While speaking on the phone after Kampala Central Police Station contacted her, Aminah said she had been looking for her daughter who withdrew from everyone after her only child was knocked dead by a boda boda rider.
“I was searching for my daughter who abandoned me and all her siblings after we buried her only child,” Aminah said as she cried on phone. “She left this place when she had developed mental disorders. She failed to cope with the death of her boy. She no longer had any contact for us to reach her.”
After the body was taken to the city morgue, people who knew her told police that she often said life had lost meaning since her boy had been killed by a reckless boda boda rider. She allegedly often cursed the person who killed her son.
“Once in a while she would talk and her thoughts were always about her deceased child. We didn’t know much about her. But even with the mental issues she had, she would talk about her child who was killed,” a woman said.
Namyalo’s child died nearly two years ago but since then, she had never regained her composure. Aminah cried that it was a test for her because she had lost a grandchild of her daughter and now the mother has also passed on.
More than 2,000 out of the 4,159 people killed on Ugandan roads last year died as a result of Boda boda crashes. The riders constituted 70 percent of the dead boda boda victims while 30 percent were the passengers.
However, even of the 1,384 pedestrians killed on Uganda’s roads last year, the majority were as a victims of (recklessly driven) boda bodas. Therefore, nearly 60 percent of deaths and injuries on Uganda’s roads are caused by or involved with boda-boda riders.
Assistant Superintendent of Police- ASP Faridah Nampiima, the traffic police spokesperson, has vowed that starting next week, they will not tolerate errant boda boda riders on any road.
Police released the October clip captured by CCTV cameras which showed the highest degree of recklessness by riders. The CCTV clips showed riders being killed at junction crossing without any care while many were riding on the wrong side of the road.
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