12 September 2009 / REUTERS, KAMPALA
Gunshots rang out in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Friday and at least two people were killed as security forces clashed with rioters for a second day.
The violence erupted because of disputes over land and power between President Yoweri Museveni's government and leaders from Buganda, one of the east African nation's four ancient kingdoms. The largely cultural and ceremonial Buganda king, Kabaka Ronald Mutebi, plans to visit the flashpoint town of Kayunga on Saturday, making it likely there will be more bloodshed. A Reuters reporter in the capital saw the bodies of two young men with bullet wounds. Witnesses said they had been shot by security forces riding armored personnel carriers. One of the dead men was in his 20s and was shot in the chest. The other was a teenage boy who had been shot in the head and was wrapped in a shawl, surrounded by sobbing relatives. "This kid was not in the protest. They shot him in a shop," the boy's mother told Reuters. She did not give her name. Kampala's streets were mostly deserted, and thick plumes of black smoke from burning tire barricades rose over the city's hills. Police said four people had been killed on Thursday in similar clashes, and denied officers used excessive force.
