By Umoja Standard Reporter.
Greater, Masaka: Uganda’s Traffic officers stopped the group of 24 Burundians in the Mpigi locale last Thursday at Katonga Checkpoint in the Kayabwe Town Council, Mpigi district, around 10 p.m.
‘A taxi of Reg. No. UBM 711K (a grey drone) was charged with overloading because it had more than 26 passengers, including the driver’. According to the police, Police says.
There were 24 Burundians in them: two Ugandans (a conductor and a driver) and one female.
“Through our investigations, we were able to establish that the 24 Burundians came from various villages and provinces in Burundi for casual work in Uganda and that they paid $300,000 to Mafaranga to Iteka service and Platinum bus, which they boarded at different intervals from Burundi via Tanzania, and the payment was specifically from Ngoli to Kampala,” police said.
The police say that they boarded the bus about three kilometers from the Mutukula border because they were afraid security would arrest them.
“The bus drivers referred them to a male Burundian who appeared to be familiar to them. He took them on “panya” routes to a tree plantation near the Mutukula border.
Similar male Burundian associated them to the administrators of a Ugandan taxi Reg No. The police stated, “UBM 711K to drive them up to Wakiso – Kampala.”
Ssali Haruna, a taxi conductor, and Katamba Yasin, a taxi driver from Pungwe village in Mukungwe sub-county in Masaka city, have been identified as the tax operators. He lives in the Kyotera district’s Kabawo zone, Mutukula Town Council.
While the taxi drivers will be charged with human trafficking, the Burundians are being held at Mpigi CPS to assist with investigations.
The group, according to the police, was smuggled in as casual workers, visitors with busy visas, and those traveling through Uganda to other destinations.
“When they come, they are employed as bar attendants or waitresses, dancers for Karaoke, and s*x workers,” said the police.
Police added that when these immigrants come, they get employed as bar attendants, dancers for Karaoke, and s*x workers.
