People from three villages in Palabek Kl sub-county sub county in Lamwo district have been displaced by inter clan clashes with their neighbors of Padibe West Sub County. The affected residents are from Lapalangwen, Agora and Orom Central villages in Palabek Kl sub-county. The displaced families have take refugee the former Gogo Internally Displaced People’s Camp. Trouble between the two communities started about a month ago after John Ochaya, a resident of Padibe West was beaten to death by his in-laws for repeatedly assaulting their sister only identified as Anek.
As a result, her in- laws mobilized and beat up the deceased into comma until he was admitted at St. Joseph Hospital, where he died last week. On Monday, the relatives of Ochaya invaded their in-laws in Palabek Kal Parish to avenge his death. They threatened to burn down the entire parish unless they are compensated for the death of their son. The engraged members demanded for 2.5 million shillings in reparation that was paid by the relatives of Anek.
However, after receiving the compensation money, the group raided villages at night a set three houses ablaze in addition to destroying and looting property worth shillings 10 million. The attackers also broke bottles and mixed them with flour and other food stuffs before leaving the area. Brian Omot Boniface, who witnessed the invasion, says the attack displaced people from three villages. He says the situation is unbearable as the affected people have nothing to eat.
Omot explains that prior to the invasion they had notified the district authority about the planned raid and they were assured of security. However, he says that when they were invaded the deployed cops just looked on as the chaos went on and didn’t nothing to stop the attack. Omot says that it was not until they threatened to retaliate when Police intervened to stop the attack.
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Francis Tabu, a resident from Lapalangwen village says they organized several meetings to resolve the dispute in vain. He says both communities have had a fluid relationship over the border disputes.
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Robin Kidaga, a resident from Orom West says they have reported the issue to Uganda Human Rights Commission demanding that the perpetrators of the attack take full responsibilities. He also wants residents of Padibe West West and Lamwo district authorities prosecuted over the invasion and failure to protect residents respectively.
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Lamwo district leadership has not yet responded to the accusation of negligence and failure to provide security to the locals as none of the officials was in office when our reporter visited the district headquarters..
