Family receive remains of woman captured on CCTV cameras drowning in Kampala manhole 10 months ago

The family of Cissy Namukasa has finally received the remains of their relative who drowned in a city manhole 10 months ago.

Footage from the police CCTV cameras on May 2,2020  captured  Namukasa who was coming from Bugoloobi fall in a trench and was washed away towards the Industrial Area by fast running water during a heavy downpour.

The remains suspected to be of Namukasa were six months later in October last year recovered from a swamp and taken for DNA testing.

On Monday, after DNA samples confirmed the remains were hers, the police and Kampala Capital City Authority handed over the remains to the relatives.

https://nilepost.co.ug/2020/10/13/police-retrieve-body-of-woman-who-drowned-in-kampala-manhole-six-months-ago/

Explaining the delay in handing over the remains despite being retrieved four months ago, the Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson, Patrick Onyango said having taken DNA samples from the remains and the family members; they had to wait for results from the Government Analytical Laboratory in Wandegeya to confirm Namukasa’s identity.

The KCCA spokesperson, Dan Nuwabiine said the body would work on compensating the family.

“Our legal team and the family will come to an understanding after following the due process,”Nuwabiine said.

Last year, activists dragged Kampala Capital City Authority to court for shs500 million for failure to make city drainage channels safe for pedestrians.

In the suit where the Attorney General was also listed as a respondent, Legal Brains Trust, a Kampala-based human rights and democracy watchdog averred that the current state of roads, drainage channels, sewers and related infrastructure in Kampala city is demonstrably unsafe and inherently hazardous to city dwellers.

“The current state of roads, drainage channels, sewers and related infrastructure in Kampala city is demonstrably unsafe and inherently hazardous to city dwellers and thus depicts an egregious culture or policy of non-enforcement of the aforesaid rights by respondents,” the activists saind in their suit.

“The respondents have hitherto wrongfully commissioned roads, drainage channels, sewers and related infrastructure with inadequate human safety precautions, for example open manholes that pose a danger to the urban dwellers and vulnerable groups like children, persons with disabilities and mental health problems.”