Many Ugandans have lived through fear over the decades – either because of the actions of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army or from the campaign of an Islamist insurgency known as the ADF. But today Ugandan Muslims face a different anxiety.
Over the past two years, unknown assailants have ambushed and killed a dozen of the country’s leading Muslim clerics. Others survived and now live in fear. The attacks have occurred across the country, from the capital, Kampala, to border towns like Mbale.
The government and police say that ADF insurgents, among others, are responsible for the killings. Other’s blame them on an ideological struggle within the Muslim community or a result of a fight over property and money.
Many, though, are pointing fingers at Ugandan government security forces themselves, accusing them of using violence and the ‘threat of terrorism’ to engender reasons for suppressing political opposition.
In the middle of all this is a so-called hit list with the names of Muslim clerics who have, apparently, been marked for murder. Over half of those on the list have now been killed and the rest now live under armed protection, but they remain under threat, increasing tensions between the different Muslim denominations, the public and the authorities.
Prompted by this story’s mysterious claims and counter claims, reporters Sorious Samura and Ivan Okuda and producer Clive Patterson teamed up to find out who is really behind the violence that is dividing a community and the nation and to ask whether state agencies are more involved than they are letting on.