Kampala wedding massacre

Last updated

Kampala wedding massacre
Uganda location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Naguru
Naguru (Uganda)
Location Naguru, Kampala, Uganda
Date26 June 1994
TargetWedding guests
Attack type
Mass shooting
Weapons Semi-automatic rifle
Deaths27 (including the perpetrator)
Injured13
PerpetratorRichard Komakech

The Kampala wedding massacre was a mass murder that occurred at a wedding party in the Naguru neighbourhood of Kampala, Uganda on 26 June 1994. The perpetrator, Richard Komakech, shot and killed 26 people at the party before he was apprehended and subsequently killed in revenge.

Contents

Massacre

Richard Komakech, a private in the Ugandan military police, was attending the wedding when he requested a female guest, Irene Ati, to dance with him. Ati declined the offer, but Komakech repeatedly insisted she dance with him to the point he became aggressive and had to be separated from her. Komakech began rioting and was expelled from the festivities. The drunken private then went to fetch a semi-automatic rifle and returned to the party about ten minutes later. Komakech first killed Irene Ati, and then started shooting randomly at the guests, in which 14 people died on the spot (including Irene Ati) and 12 more later died in hospital, while 13 others were seriously wounded.

Komakech eventually attempted to commit suicide with his rifle by shooting himself in the mouth, though he suffered only wounds to his forehead and pretended to be dead until police arrived. Although officers who apprehended Komakech tried to prevent the guests from killing him, Irene Ati's father managed to break through the police cordon and killed Komakech by smashing in his skull.

By the end of the massacre 27 people had been killed. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wounded Knee Massacre</span> 1890 South Dakota civilian killings

The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was the deadliest mass shooting in American history, involving nearly three hundred Lakota people shot and killed by soldiers of the United States Army. The massacre, part of what the U.S. military called the Pine Ridge Campaign, occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, following a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp. The previous day, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside approached Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them five miles westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp. The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrived and surrounded the encampment. The regiment was supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns. The Army was catering to the anxiety of settlers who called the conflict the Messiah War and were worried the Ghost Dance signified a potentially dangerous Sioux resurgence. Historian Jeffrey Ostler wrote in 2004, "Wounded Knee was not made up of a series of discrete unconnected events. Instead, from the disarming to the burial of the dead, it consisted of a series of acts held together by an underlying logic of racist domination."

Stewart Graeme Guthrie, GC was a New Zealand Police sergeant and is the most recent Commonwealth civilian recipient of the George Cross, the highest award for conspicuous gallantry not in the face of an enemy awarded in certain Commonwealth countries. He received the award for his role in the police response to the Aramoana massacre, in which he lost his life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matricide</span> Act of killing ones own mother

Matricide is the act of killing one's own mother.

The Hoddle Street massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on the evening of Sunday, 9 August 1987, in Hoddle Street, Clifton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, in Australia. The shootings resulted in the deaths of seven people, and serious injury to 19 others. After a police chase lasting more than 30 minutes, 19-year-old former Australian Army officer cadet Julian Knight was caught in nearby Fitzroy North and arrested for the shootings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strathfield massacre</span> 1991 mass shooting at a shopping centre in Strathfield, Sydney, Australia

The Strathfield massacre was a shooting rampage at a shopping centre in Strathfield, Sydney, Australia, on 17 August 1991. The shooter was Wade Frankum, who killed himself as police arrived at the scene. The incident left eight dead and six wounded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kizza Besigye</span> Ugandan politician

Warren Kizza Besigye Kifefe, known as Colonel Dr. Kizza Besigye, is a Ugandan physician, politician, and former military officer in the Uganda People's Defence Force. He served as the president of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) political party and was an unsuccessful candidate in Uganda's 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016 presidential elections, losing all of them to the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, who has been president of Uganda since 26 January 1986. The results of the 2006 elections were contested in court, and the court found massive rigging and disenfranchisement. Besigye allowed an early internal FDC election for a successor president, which took place on 24 November 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luby's shooting</span> 1991 mass shooting in Killeen, Texas

The Luby's shooting, also known as the Luby's massacre, was a mass shooting that took place on October 16, 1991, at a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. The perpetrator, George Hennard, drove his pickup truck through the front window of the restaurant before opening fire, killing 23 people and wounding 27 others. Hennard had a brief shootout with police in which he was seriously wounded but refused their orders to surrender and eventually killed himself.

The Capitol Hill massacre was a mass murder committed by 28-year-old Kyle Aaron Huff in the southeast part of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. On the morning of March 25, 2006, Huff entered a rave after-party and opened fire, killing six and wounding two. He then killed himself as he was being confronted by police on the front porch of 2112 E. Republican Street.

Terrorism in Uganda primarily occurs in the north, where the Lord's Resistance Army, a militant Christian religious cult that seeks to overthrow the Ugandan government, has attacked villages and forcibly conscripted children into the organization since 1988. The al-Shabbab jihadist group has also staged attacks in the country.

Between July 26 and July 27, 2002, Dragan Čedić shot and killed seven people and wounded four others in Leskovac, Jablanica District, Yugoslavia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bremen school shooting</span> School shooting in Bremen, Germany

The Bremen school shooting was a school shooting that occurred on 20 June 1913 at St Mary's Catholic School (St-Marien-Schule) in Walle, a quarter of Bremen, Germany. The gunman, 29-year-old unemployed teacher Heinz Schmidt from Sülze, indiscriminately shot at students and teachers, killing five girls and wounding more than 20 other people before being subdued by school staff. He was never tried for the crime and sent directly to an asylum where he died in 1932.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katumba Wamala</span> Ugandan politician

Edward Katumba Wamala, more commonly known as Katumba Wamala, is a Ugandan general who serves as Minister of Works and Transport in the Ugandan cabinet, since 14 December 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumbria shootings</span> 2010 shooting spree in Cumbria, England

The Cumbria shootings were a shooting spree that occurred on 2 June 2010 when a lone gunman, taxi driver Derrick Bird, killed twelve people and injured eleven others in Cumbria, England, United Kingdom. Along with the 1987 Hungerford massacre and the 1996 Dunblane school massacre, it is one of the worst criminal acts involving firearms in British history. The shootings ended when Bird killed himself in a wooded area after abandoning his car in the village of Boot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass shooting</span> Incident involving multiple victims of firearm violence

A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers kill or injure multiple individuals simultaneously using a firearm. There is no widely accepted definition of "mass shooting" and different organizations tracking such incidents use different definitions. Definitions of mass shootings exclude warfare and sometimes exclude instances of gang violence, armed robberies, familicides and terrorism. The perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting may be referred to as an active shooter.

The Kamwenge Trading Centre shooting was a mass murder that occurred in Kamwenge, Uganda on 26 December 1994, when police constable Alfred Ogwang shot at revelers in a disco at Kamwenge Trading Centre, killing 13 people and wounding 14 others. He escaped to Dura afterwards, where he was arrested.

The Bombo shooting was a mass murder that occurred in Bombo, Uganda on 9 March 2013. The perpetrator, 30-year-old Patrick Okot Odoch, a private in the Uganda People's Defence Force, shot and killed nine people in a bar and, while fleeing, a tenth victim. Odoch fled and was arrested ten days later, and was charged with murder and attempted murder. On 4 June, Odoch was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 90 years imprisonment.

The Port Arthur massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on 28 April 1996 at Port Arthur, a tourist town in the Australian state of Tasmania. The perpetrator, Martin Bryant, killed 35 people and wounded 23 others, the deadliest massacre in modern Australian history. The attack led to fundamental changes in Australia's gun laws.

From late October to mid November 2021, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and the Islamic State organization carried out four bombing attacks across Uganda.

The Arua nightclub shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on 28 September 2006, when Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) soldier Andrew Wanyama shot seven people at the Paradise Nightclub in Arua, Uganda, killing three and wounding four others. He fled and was killed the following afternoon by soldiers and police officers after he opened fire on them.

References

  1. 24 Killed for a dance, The Daily Topic (28 June 1994)
  2. Soldier kills 14, then turns gun on himself, New Straits Times (28 June 1994)
  3. Amokläufer tötet 26 Gäste einer Hochzeitsfeier, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (28 June 1994)
  4. Amoklauf eines ugandischen Soldaten - 26 Hochzeitsgäste erschossen, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (28 June 1994)
  5. Amok an Hochzeit, Blick (28 June 1994)