Xavier Radio Ug News 24 7
Behind the official facade of law and order, a parallel system of terror operates in Uganda, where citizens are abducted, disappeared, and subjected to brutal torture in clandestine “safe houses” run by state security agencies, an investigation based on victim testimonies and human rights data reveals.
The stories of survivors, marked by shocking consistency, paint a picture of systemic cruelty designed to break individuals both physically and psychologically.
“They Can Easily Kill You Here”: A Survivor’s Ordeal
Victims, interviewed separately, recount near-identical patterns of abuse. They describe being blindfolded and driven to unknown locations, where they are told, “No one knows where you are, you could easily be killed, and so you better talk.”
The methods of torture are medieval in their cruelty:
Suffocation: Water is poured over the nose and throat until the victim cannot breathe.
Blunt Force Trauma: Incessant beatings with blunt objects.
Genital Mutilation: Bricks tied to testicles to inflict excruciating pain.
Psychological Warfare: A gun cocked in a victim’s mouth with the words, “Now you’re dead.”
Chemical Torture: A bagful of fresh, chopped red pepper pulled over the head, burning the eyes and skin, making breathing impossible.
One young man was forced to share a room with dead bodies, ordered to clean the blood as a tool of psychological terror.
A System of Impunity, Not Justice
The Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) has registered over 7,500 complaints of torture in the last decade, a figure believed to be a mere fraction of the actual cases. While the UHRC can award compensation to victims from the state, the perpetrators—often plain-clothed operatives from agencies like the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) and the Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce (JATT)—are almost never identified or prosecuted.
“I think if the individuals were being held responsible, that would go a long way in preventing it,” says Roselyn Karugongo-Segawa, a director at the UHRC. “Now they do it and they know the Attorney General will represent them.”
Official Denial vs. On-the-Ground Reality
The government maintains a public stance of denial. Officials like the Minister of Internal Affairs and the UPDF spokesman have repeatedly claimed that “safe houses” do not exist, or are merely venues for “quiet meetings.”
However, human rights advocates and trauma counselors see the brutal evidence firsthand.
“They come limping, others come with rotten wounds, others come when their nails [are] plucked off by pliers,” says Faith Bothuwok, a trauma counsellor at the African Centre for Torture Victims (ACTV). She, like her colleagues, is certain these torture chambers exist, noting, “They keep changing the locations, but they’re there.”
A Culture of Violence, A Legacy of Fear
Analysts point to a deeper cultural and institutional problem. Security personnel, often trained for military combat, are deployed to interrogate civilians without adequate human rights training.
“The way the military operates is different from the police because the military trains with a shoot to kill policy,” explains Karugongo-Segawa. “There should be a deliberate move by the state to make sure these people respect human rights.”
This is compounded by a societal normalization of violence. “Children are beaten from a very young age… So there’s this idea that for a person to tell the truth, he must be beaten,” notes an ACTV advocacy officer.
Despite some improvements in formal prison conditions, the shadowy network of safe houses continues to operate as a tool of state coercion. For the victims who emerge—many too traumatized or fearful to ever seek justice—the physical and psychological scars are lifelong. The government’s refusal to openly acknowledge this crisis and hold individual perpetrators accountable ensures that for many Ugandans, the state is not a protector, but the source of their deepest fears. The nation’s safety is compromised not by external threats, but by a brutal apparatus operating in the shadows, with impunity.
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