Mbale Student stabbed to death in dormitory
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- Published on Monday, 16 July 2012 12:27
- Written by Nkwasibwe Geofrey
- Category: news
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Police in Mbale are holding a 20-year-old female student accused of fatally stabbing a colleague and injuring another. The deceased has been identified as Catherine Wegosasa, a Senior Three student at Bugisu High School.
Her funeral was expected to take place in Sironko yesterday. Students at the school say the Saturday night incident was sparked off by an argument over a pair of shoes.
Eyewitnesses told this newspaper that the deceased had lost a pair of shoes belonging to the suspect and had bought a new pair as a replacement.
She continued to gossip about the incident with her friends and was confronted by the suspect, a Senior Two student at the school, on Saturday night over the matter.
“The quarrel started at about 9pm within the dormitory and went on until 10pm,” Moreen Nagudi, a student who witnessed the incident, told this newspaper.
“We took it for a joke because these three have been friends but we saw the suspect running to her box, picked a knife and went for the two girls. She knifed one in the stomach and she fell and when another tried to intervene she was also stabbed. We all took off as she edged towards us,” Nagudi said.
The deceased lay on the floor yelling in pain as she bled profusely from her knife wound. Caroline Murole, a Senior Three student who tried to intervene, was stabbed in the neck. She was later admitted to Mbale Regional Referral Hospital, where she was reported to be in stable condition.
Students who witnessed the incident told Daily Monitor that the suspect then “went wild”, vowing to kill anybody who dared to arrest her, while frightened students scampered out of the dormitory windows for safety.
Failed escape
The fleeing students raised an alarm that attracted the attention of a police patrol unit, whose officers arrested the suspect as she tried to jump over the school gate.
The area police spokesperson, Ms Diana Nandawula, confirmed that one 20-year-old suspect is in custody in connection with the incident.
“We have arrested her and she is in our custody. After completion of the investigations, she will definitely be charged with the murder of Wegosasa and attempted murder of Ms Murole, who is nursing neck injuries at Mbale hospital,” Ms Nandawula said.
She added that it was the first such incident in the area but one that could have been avoided if matrons were attached to the dormitory and students searched for weapons.
“Most of our dormitories don’t have matrons, they are not fenced and students are like birds that are in open free range, just walk in and out at any time,” Ms Nandawula said.
“I am sure this student could have planned for long to take the lives of her friends.”
The incident comes barely a week after Mbale Resident District Commissioner Paul Nangoli described school dormitories in the district as dens of thugs, prostitutes and places where every evil is committed.
Source: Daily Monitor