UGANDA, Hoima | Real Muloodi News | Leaders in Bunyoro are expressing concern over the rising number of brutal land evictions affecting several families in the area.
Despite efforts to prevent the practice, it continues to persist, leaving many families under threat of eviction or forcibly evicted from their ancestral land.
In March this year, more than 500 families in Kapapi and Kiganja sub-counties were brutally evicted from their homes.
The affected people, mainly cultivators and pastoralists, were in a dispute with Moses Asiimwe, a tycoon in Hoima City, over approximately 5 square miles of land.
Police and private security guards reportedly burnt over 50 homes and looted animals, including cows and goats.
The situation is worse in Buseruka Sub-County, where several families are currently under the threat of eviction from land they have lived on for decades.
Peter Banura, the Buliisa LCV Chairperson, describes the trend of evictions as appalling, with many families spending sleepless nights.
Pius Wakabi, the Bugahya County Member of Parliament, attributes the increase in land-grabbing cases to the oil discovery and ongoing oil activities in the region.
The discovery has created a demand for land for various investments, leading to several speculators and land grabbers invading the region and fraudulently acquiring titles on people’s land.
Wakabi calls on the government to provide free land titles to residents in Bunyoro to prevent further fraudulent land grabbing.
Harriet Businge, the Hoima Woman Member of Parliament, warns that without immediate government intervention, most families in Bunyoro will be rendered landless.
She urges the government to accord Bunyoro special consideration and prevent rampant land evictions in the region.
Patrick Musinguzi, a resident of Kigorobya Sub-County, notes that before the oil discovery, no land evictions were witnessed in the Bunyoro Sub-region, and the government must take responsibility for protecting people’s land in the area.
In Hoima, over 2,000 families face eviction from their ancestral land. The affected families are residents of Rwobunyonyi, Kirindasojo, and Kihohoro villages in the Buraru Sub-County.
They are in a feud with Fred Mugamba, a tycoon in Hoima City, over land measuring 810 hectares. The families claim to have occupied the disputed land since the 1940s and accuse Mugamba of slashing their crops and torching their houses.
In January last year, during his visit to Bunyoro to commission oil roads, President Yoweri Museveni tasked Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja to intervene in the escalating land-grabbing issues in the region and provide him with a report so that the land grabbers can be dealt with once and for all.
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