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Uganda’s major opposition chief Bobi Wine was taken to hospital after being shot throughout a confrontation with police on Tuesday on the outskirts of the capital Kampala, his get together mentioned.
The Nationwide Unity Platform mentioned on X that safety operatives had “made an try on the life” of the politician and added that the ex-pop singer, whose actual title is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, had “been rushed to hospital for pressing medical consideration”.
Safety forces “surrounded our automobiles and began firing stay bullets, tear fuel canisters”, the opposition get together mentioned, after Wine had gone to “verify on one in every of our attorneys”.
A video posted by the get together reveals the pop musician-turned-opposition chief in ache after being shot within the leg. The previous member of parliament was helped up and right into a ready automobile by members of his workforce as a police pick-up truck left.
Wine ran for president in 2021, dropping to the long-standing Yoweri Museveni in an election he claimed was rigged in opposition to him. The president has held energy since 1986 having used, critics say, each organ of state to his benefit.
In the course of the 2021 marketing campaign, Wine was shot at, crushed and thrown in jail. Scores of his supporters have been killed and his marketing campaign occasions have been stormed by police. His trademark pink beret was outlawed.
In 2019, police pummelled Wine unconscious with an iron bar and, he claimed, used pliers on his testicles. “I’ve been focused with bullets and tear fuel canisters, and wounded by the police,” Wine advised the Monetary Instances afterwards.
“That is yet one more try on the lifetime of our president by the Museveni regime!” the NUP mentioned.
“Is that this a curtainraiser for 2026 election violence?” requested Sarah Bireete, director of the Middle for Constitutional Governance in Kampala. She was referring to the subsequent presidential election when the 42-year-old Wine might once more face the 79-year-old Museveni.
In July, Wine condemned the federal government’s response to anti-corruption rallies. He expressed solidarity with “brave” protesters who had taken to the streets within the face of “very brutal actions by the navy and police”.
After Tuesday’s incident, the Uganda Police Power mentioned that Wine had been invited to a thanksgiving ceremony on the outskirts of Kampala which handed off peacefully however that, afterwards, he and his workforce had launched into a procession in opposition to police recommendation, “resulting in police intervention”.
“Law enforcement officials on website declare he stumbled whereas entering into his car, inflicting the damage,” the assertion continues, “whereas Hon Kyagulanyi and his workforce assert that he was shot. An investigation will probably be carried out to make clear the info.”
