Marine personnel from the Busoga North police command, alongside local divers, have retrieved the bodies of two fishermen, who on Tuesday evening drowned in Lake Kyoga. The deceased have been identified as 22-year-old Simon Osina and Peter Kiirya, aged 20 years.
The duo have been fishermen attached to Walumbe landing site, in Kidera town council, in Buyende district.
The accident reportedly occurred when the duo was fishing using a small-sized boat during the wee hours of May 12th, 2026. Preliminary reports indicate that a group of three fishermen sailing on a small boat had gone to set down their nets when a heavy wind hit the lake.
The juvenile fisherman survived by successfully swimming towards the shoreline, and he is the one who informed the leaders of the landing site about what had transpired. The juvenile survivor says that the heavy winds cast him towards the shoreline with shallow waters, and he describes his survival as a miracle.
Hassan Kidaga, a member of the landing site management committee, says that small boats are the leading cause of water-related accidents in the area, since they cannot withstand the strong waves sweeping through large water bodies. He says that the winds break these small boats into multiple pieces, abandoning the occupants to drown in open waters.
Kidaga says that the fishermen had partially abandoned small boats during the intensified operations by soldiers attached to the Fisheries Protection Unit (FPU); however, following their withdrawal from the lakes, the situation seems to worsen. The Busoga North police spokesperson, Samson Lubega, says that the deceased has been taken to Kidera health center IV mortuary for postmortem.
Lubega has further cautioned fishermen to refrain from using illegal fishing tools, which he says to be life threatening and might equally result into hefty fines or imprisonment on arrest-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
