Officers from the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) apprehended two Ugandan military personnel in a port town located in Busia County.
Two officers from the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) were detained on Sumba Island in Port Victoria due to allegations of targeting and harassing Kenyan fishermen working on Lake Victoria.
When they were arrested, the officers Richard Amrie and Michael Busola had already apprehended a number of Kenyan fishermen and were making preparations for transporting them to Uganda.
Their apprehension was based on intelligence tips from locals and fishermen to the KDF officers who were patrolling the waters at the time of the incident.
This was in response to the locals’ accounts of how officers from the neighboring country frequently crossed over to harass Kenyan fishermen and detain them for extended periods.
After the UPDF soldiers were arrested, locals commended KDF officers for their quick reaction, disclosing that they had been beaten and injured by the officers on Wednesday.
‘Yesterday they arrested me and told us to follow a certain route. I complied, only to be told that I was planning an escape. One officer took me into their boat and immediately pounced on me with beatings,” one of the fishermen who was arrested by the Ugandan officers narrated.
”He hit me three times on the chest using the buttstock of the gun he was having. I was compelled to ask why he was beating me after arresting me because they have been really harassing us,” he added.
Later on, the two sergeant officers were held at Budalangi Police Station in Busia County while investigations into their behavior were finalized.
It was not clear at first whether the officers would be handed over to Uganda or presented in court.
It has been common for fishermen to lose their fishing gear to robbers and to experience harassment from police and military personnel from neighboring countries on the lake.
There are fears that the cases could lead to diplomatic tensions regarding boundary disputes in Lake Victoria’s waters. This concern has led the government to send KDF and Coast Guard personnel to patrol and safeguard Kenya’s territorial boundaries.
