{UAH} I waited for dad for 13 years, but instead got a death certificate
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I waited for dad for 13 years, but instead got a death certificate
Ms Pamella Musimire. PHOTO BY PEREZ RUMANZI
Posted Monday, December 1 2014 at 02:00
IN SUMMARY
Search for father. Ms Pamella Musimire vows to search until her family gets justice.
RUKUNGIRI. Ms Pamella Musiimire, 23, the eldest child of a UPDF soldier, Private Julius Ndabaza from Kigango cell Kabingo Parish in Kebisoni Sub-county Rukungiri district, says their father has not been at home for 13 years, and are not sure whether he is dead or alive.
She says she last saw him in January 2001 when he visited his family in Rukungiri before returning to duty. "Our mother died in 1996, so he became rare at home. It was us who used to go and visit him in the barracks and come back. I stayed with him in Kololo and studied there for most of the time. When I returned to the village, I never met him again until 2001 when he visited us, that was the last time I saw him," says Ms Musiimire.
In an interview with Daily Monitor at their home in Kebisoni last week, Ms Musiimire said she kept asking relatives to find out where he was but they turned a deaf ear. In January, she set out to look for her father who had not left even a photo of himself at home.
"I managed to save some money over a period of time, preparing to find him whereever he was. When I went to Kololo where I was with him last, they told me to go to Bombo, where I spent three weeks looking for him with every one avoiding me. They later went into computer and told me he has not been getting a salary since 2002," Ms Musiimire says.
She added: "An army friend of his told me they were both transferred to Gulu District at the end of 2001 but has not seen him since."
Ms Musiimire travelled to Gulu but was also told her father had been transferred to Golobili, then later to Ngolomo, Kitgum, Pachor and then back to Gulu in the same year. His last transfers were to Karamoja and Amudat respectively. She managed to reach all the stations mentioned but never found Private Ndabaza.
A few days after returning to Bombo Barracks, Ms Musiimire was advised to go to Tororo District Third Division headquarters. There, she was told her father had fallen sick and was taken to Rubongi Military Hospital.
"I was given very many books to check for the names of my father... I later found the name of my father marked in red. A medic told me that it meant he had died on October 31, 2002, after being sick for a month, and that his body was transferred to Bugema Health Centre, and didn't know what happened to it after that," she says.
At Bugema, nobody told her what happened to her father's body. "I told the soldiers that I wanted to follow his gratuity and they gave me a death certificate, indicating that he had been sick for a full month and died of Malaria and Pneumonia.
"They told me the details of how to claim for his gratuity. This was not my intension in the first place but I thought it would be a better way to get to know what happened to him.
"What angered me most is that when I was at Bombo, a soldier checked for his particulars and there was even a map of our house, she said.
There is no way such a person would die and his body is not returned home. I still have a feeling that he may even be alive but hidden somewhere. I am determined to see why he was never returned if he died and if he is, where he is," she says.
When she presented the forms at Bombo and later CMI offices, the soldiers told her that they would offer Shs20m to the family to cater for their needs which she refused.
She has since visited offices including that of minister for public service, Uganda Human Rights Commission, army headquarters, among others, to see if she can be helped to access either properties of her father or know where her father is or was buried, but she has not been helped.
Through her lawyers, Ms Musiimire has filed a notice to the permanent secretary ministry of defence requesting for return and decent burial of her father at his ancestral home, compensation to the children and payment of his salary to the family.
Army Spokesperson Col Paddy Ankunda last Thursday said: "That cannot happen [a soldier dying and not returned home]. UPDF is known for respecting comrades. Let her come to our offices and we help her, what you can help her will be just to write, but you can do nothing for her. Let that woman come to our offices and we help her, if she has gone to many offices, she has not come to mine."
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