ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
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Twentieth anniversary of mass murder. The cult leaders disappeared after the massacre.
Uganda's Kanungu cult massacre that killed 700 followers
Twenty years on, the whereabouts of (from L to R) Ursula Komuhangi, Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibwetere and Dominic Kataribabo are unknown
Judith Ariho does not shed any tears as she recalls the church massacre in which her mother, two siblings and four other relatives were among at least 700 people who died. Exactly 20 years ago, in south-western Uganda's Kanungu district, they were locked inside a church, with the doors and windows nailed shut from the outside. It was then set alight. Two decades on, the horror of the event is still too much for Ms Ariho, who appears to only be able to cope with the trauma by closing herself off from the emotion. The dead were members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - a doomsday cult that believed the world would come to an end at the turn of the millennium. "The end of present times", as one of its books phrased it, came two-and-a-half months later, on 17 March 2000.
Twenty years later, no-one has been prosecuted in connection with the massacre and the cult leaders, if they are alive, have never been found.
The faithful had been drawn by the charismatic leaders Credonia Mwerinde, a former bartender and sex worker, and ex-government employee Joseph Kibwetere, who said that they had had visions of the Virgin Mary in the 1980s. They registered the Movement as a group whose aim was to obey the Ten Commandments and preach the word of Jesus Christ. Christian icons were prominent in the Movement's compound and the cult had tenuous links to Roman Catholicism with its leadership dominated by a number of defrocked priests and nuns, including Ursula Komuhangi and Dominic Kataribabo. ...
But it appears that the cult leaders may have also engaged in murder and torture before the final massacre. In Kanungu, there are numerous wide and deep pits where dozens of bodies, thought to have been dumped over several years, were retrieved days after the blaze. At the back of what seems like a ruined office building are two more pits, said to have been torture chambers. Pits were also found near other branches of the church. ...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51821411
Uganda's Kanungu cult massacre that killed 700 followers
Judith Ariho does not shed any tears as she recalls the church massacre in which her mother, two siblings and four other relatives were among at least 700 people who died. Exactly 20 years ago, in south-western Uganda's Kanungu district, they were locked inside a church, with the doors and windows nailed shut from the outside. It was then set alight. Two decades on, the horror of the event is still too much for Ms Ariho, who appears to only be able to cope with the trauma by closing herself off from the emotion. The dead were members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - a doomsday cult that believed the world would come to an end at the turn of the millennium. "The end of present times", as one of its books phrased it, came two-and-a-half months later, on 17 March 2000.
Twenty years later, no-one has been prosecuted in connection with the massacre and the cult leaders, if they are alive, have never been found.
Anna Kabeireho, who still lives on a hillside that overlooks the land that the cult owned, has not forgotten the smell that engulfed the valley that Friday morning.
"Everything was covered in smoke, soot and the stench of burnt flesh. It seemed to go right to your lungs," she recalls. "Everybody was running into the valley. The fire was still going. There were dozens of bodies, burnt beyond recognition. We covered our noses with aromatic leaves to ward off the smell. For several months afterwards, we could not eat meat." ...The faithful had been drawn by the charismatic leaders Credonia Mwerinde, a former bartender and sex worker, and ex-government employee Joseph Kibwetere, who said that they had had visions of the Virgin Mary in the 1980s. They registered the Movement as a group whose aim was to obey the Ten Commandments and preach the word of Jesus Christ. Christian icons were prominent in the Movement's compound and the cult had tenuous links to Roman Catholicism with its leadership dominated by a number of defrocked priests and nuns, including Ursula Komuhangi and Dominic Kataribabo. ...
But it appears that the cult leaders may have also engaged in murder and torture before the final massacre. In Kanungu, there are numerous wide and deep pits where dozens of bodies, thought to have been dumped over several years, were retrieved days after the blaze. At the back of what seems like a ruined office building are two more pits, said to have been torture chambers. Pits were also found near other branches of the church. ...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51821411