In the northeastern province of Moroto, the Ugandan military court has sentenced 32 citizens of Kenya to 10 years in prison.
They were found guilty of illegally possessing both ammunition and firearms, crimes that might have been tried in a Ugandan military court.
The penalties have been verified by Col. Deo Akiiki, the deputy army spokesperson for Uganda.
The punishment for each offence is a 10-year prison sentence, and the court decided that the convicted must serve their terms side by side.
The Kenyans are all residents of the bordering Lodwar district. They were convicted on their own plea of being guilty and will serve their sentences at Moroto government prison in Uganda.
According to Uganda’s army, the arrests were part of a regional disarmament exercise.
Ugandan Police Have Since Been Arresting Kenyans
In 2010, a human rights group and a lawyer claimed that the police in Uganda were illegally holding two Kenyan human rights activists who went to the country to help defend suspects charged over the twin bombings that killed 76 people in the capital.
The Ugandan police arrested one. Ms Khalima Abdalla, of Kenyan nationality, though married in Uganda, was a resident of Makindye Division, Kampala, and was arrested on suspicion that she, along with others still at large, were involved in acts of human trafficking, contrary to Section 3(1)(a) of the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Acts 2009. This happened in 2016.
Late 2022 saw the arrest of twenty-eight Kenyan fishermen who were apprehended by Ugandan authorities for allegedly fishing in a section of Lake Victoria belonging to the neighboring country.
Also, on February 12, 2023, 42 Kenyan fishermen were arrested and detained in Lolwe Island in Ugandan waters as they were fishing and taken to Kampala after their 12 boats were seized by Ugandan authorities.