Caskets containing remains of the children at Salama School for the Blind in Kisoga Town Council, Mukono District, on November 2, 2022. Photo/Jessica Sabano
Residents of Kisoga Town Council, a remote part of Mukono, had not seen anything heart-wrenching, except last week when a school in their midst went up in flames burning trapped blind pupils.
Yesterday was sobering. An A-Plus Funeral Services hearse pulled up into the compound of Salama School for the Blind. And pallbearers disembarked, with beers in hand. Then they pulled out coffins, not one or two but 11.
Each was rolled into a white tent circumscribed by eight marquees. Inside the 11 small white boxes were the remains of blind pupils who perished in the inferno.
The deceased were all burnt beyond recognition that the government had to conduct DNA tests to ascertain which remains were whose, before assembling grieving families yesterday to receive them.
Already traumatized by the dreams and bodies of their children going up in flames, the week-long wait for information about the identities of the victims ballooned the agony of parents and guardians to intolerable bounds.
And the weighty sediment of sorrow was palpable. A crowd that had packed up at the ill-fated school as early as 7:30 am, braving the chilly and swishing morning wind, burst into wild wails as the bodies of the pupils arrived.
On an ordinary morning, the institution yanked to life early, electrified by the learners who busied themselves with chores and class work. Last week’s fire changed all that, leaving the half-burnt dormitory a standing physical symbol of a tragedy whose cause remains a subject of speculation.
The anguish and pain of the deaths yesterday manifested in an emotional meltdown where beyond relatives and residents, journalists covering the requiem mass broke down too. Many parents and caretakers collapsed, prompting well-wishers to fan them to life with shirts.
Overcast skies added gloom to the doom on earth. It appeared even nature was bitter. As the state minister for Primary Education, Dr. Joyce Kaducu, who represented First Lady and Education Minister Janet Museveni, began handing out the remains, the heavens opened with fury, drenching many outside tents.
The wailing pitch and grief consumed the people in ways that illuminated the painful chasm of the departed.
“Whenever Mudondo returned home for holidays, she barred all her siblings from washing utensils because she said it was her turn to do so since she was always at school. Who will now lead us in prayer?” Ms Juliet Nabaggala, the mother of the late Patricia Mudondo, bellowed to no one in particular.
She stroked the coffin gently, aiming at no particular spot, and then suddenly spanked herself with vigour, throwing her hands open into the air in supplication.
Witnesses to her public pain shook their heads sideways in disbelief, then looked down, weighed by the emotional meltdown of another human that could be them.
As the dead were mourned, to some families, uncertainty lingered about the fate of four of the six survivors hospitalised in Kampala.
“The act of burning children in Uganda,” Rev Fr Paul Ssebitoogo, the parish priest of St Luke Catholic Church in Mukono Town, said as he led the requiem mass, “is a common activity and many innocent children have lost their lives in such inferno without proper information”.
It is now a week since the inferno, and government agencies that have been investigating the fire incident have issued no preliminary report, arrested no suspect, and pointed out nothing as to the cause, leaving room for speculation.
In the void, the school head teacher, Mr Francis Kinubi, without providing proof, on Tuesday attempted to link what he called “arson” to a longstanding land wrangle between the institution and some unnamed claimants.
The school was torched just days before a planned visit by Princess Anne of the British royal household.
“We should pray for Uganda because there have been many fire accidents in schools [without conclusive investigations],” the man of God said yesterday, aiming to calm nerves by directing the burdens of the bereaved to the shoulders of an omnipotent God.
What the government lacked in answers, it tried to compensate with condolence contributions. And money births drama. There was Shs5 million for each family that lost a child to facilitate the burial.
Then there was a stampede, raising fears some unqualified claimants might be in the queue and clamor.
Minister Kaducu had a solution. She asked headteacher Kinusi to step forward to physically vet if the claimants had indeed helped the deceased. “I want each one of the relatives who is going to receive this money to identify him or herself with a national identity card,” she said as men and women alike shoved each other in a mad push forward to the cash point.
Bureaucrats in disbelief
Bureaucrats such as Ms Sarah Bugosi, the commissioner for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, who represented Education Ministry Permanent Secretary Ketty Lamaro and Mukono Resident District Commissioner Fatuma Ndisaba, District Chairman Pater Bakaluba and Chief Administrative Officer James Nkata looked on in disbelief.
It was not only the dead, the government remembered. It donated Shs650,000 and bedding to each of the survivors.
To Ms Bugosi, the inferno was tragic, but the government has from its ashes learned about the less-than-adequate care for impaired pupils, a lapse she pledged will be fixed through an inclusive education policy pending approval.
“Fathers, even mothers, run away when they produce a child with a disability. Even some of these lying here (victims) died when they didn’t know who their fathers were. Let us accept these children as they are. Let us take care of them because once supported they can become important people,” she said to a dead silence.
And one after another, pallbearers took the coffins to each waiting car brought by families, with some ending in car boots. And just like that, it was adios from the school and Kisoga Town Council community to the children they have over the years counted their own. Indeed, a journey of no return.
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“Whenever Mudondo returned home for holidays, she barred all her siblings from washing utensils because she said it was her turn to do so since she was always at school. Who will now lead us in prayer?” Juliet Nabaggala, mother of late Patricia Mudondo
“The burning of children in Uganda is a common activity and many innocent children have lost their lives in such inferno without the proper information. We should pray for Uganda because there have been many fire accidents in schools,” Rev Fr Paul Ssebitoogo, the parish priest of St Luke Catholic Church
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