Latest: Uganda Court Sentences Eight to Death for Killing Two Evangelists in 2024

Two men went down to the shore of Lake Victoria in August 2024, in a district where fishing is work, food, and daily life. They did not come home. More than two years later, a court in Iganga has sentenced eight men to death for their killing, and yet the most basic question about that morning, why it happened, is still answered in two completely different ways.

On Wednesday, October 7, 2026, Iganga High Court Justice David Batema convicted eight men on two counts of murder and sentenced each of them to death. That much is reported by UG Standard, New Vision, and Morning Star News, and it is the one part of the story on which the sources agree.

The eight convicted, as listed by UG Standard, are Odongo Misaki, Karoli Lwanga, Musoke Yakuti, Kabwiso Mairadi, Talisuna Muzaham, Wandera Karim, Wasire Pius, and Latifu Nyanga. Name spellings vary between outlets: Morning Star News gives one name as "Wandera Kalimu," and New Vision spells a surname "Mariadi." This article uses the UG Standard spellings and notes that variants exist.

The killings took place on August 19, 2024, at Bukewa Central Village, Bukewa Parish, Buhemba Sub-county, Namayingo District, near Lake Victoria. Morning Star News spells the village "Bukewe" and the victims "Robert Baguma and Moses Okech," while UG Standard spells them "Bagume Robert and Okech Moses." Again, this article uses the UG Standard spellings, with the variants noted.

From here, the accounts part company. The honest way to tell this story is to lay both accounts side by side, clearly attributed, and to refuse to settle a motive that the sources dispute.

Morning Star News Account: Evangelists Killed for Preaching, Residents Say

Morning Star News, citing area residents, reports that Bagume Robert and Okech Moses were Christian evangelists beaten, cut, and stoned to death after a three-month gospel outreach to fishermen on the Lake Victoria shore. That account comes from residents and witnesses via Morning Star News, not from Ugandan court reporting.

According to that account, a trial witness said the attackers accused the two men of misleading people through preaching, tore their Bibles, and shouted about killing them for misleading people in a Muslim area. Morning Star News reports those claims as witness and resident testimony, and this article presents them only in those terms.

Morning Star News itself notes the discrepancy with other reporting. It says at least one Ugandan outlet "misreported" the killings as over robbery accusations, while local Christians cited religious motives. The outlet's own framing is part of the dispute, not a resolution of it, and it should be read that way.

There is also a difference in how the sentencing roles are described. Morning Star News reports that five men were sentenced for the killings and three others, including Misaki and his two brothers, for being present and failing to alert police.

UG Standard and New Vision, by contrast, report that all eight were convicted on two murder counts and sentenced to death. The reports differ, and this article does not smooth that difference away.

Ugandan Court Reporting: Theft Allegation and Mob Attack Account

Ugandan court reporting gives a different account of what happened that day. UG Standard and New Vision report that the prosecution case was that the two men had gone fishing, were intercepted over allegations of theft, had their hands tied behind their backs, were taken to the home of Odongo Misaki, the Local Council One chairperson, and were then beaten by a mob.

New Vision reports that a post-mortem showed both men died from severe traumatic brain injuries caused by blunt-force trauma. That medical finding is part of the court reporting, and it describes how they died, not why the attack began.

The court judgment as reported by New Vision faulted Misaki for handing the men to the mob instead of the police. That detail matters, because it places a local leader's decision at the centre of the case: a chairperson who, in the court's reported view, should have handed two men in custody to the police, and instead handed them to a crowd.

Neither account, on its own, should be presented as the court's finding on motive, and this article does not do so. The Morning Star version must not be presented as the court finding, and the court-reporting version must not be presented as the whole truth about what residents say they saw. Both are attributed claims, and the motive remains disputed between the sources.

Readers following persecution and Christian life in Africa can see related coverage in the killing of Christian Red Cross worker Lydia Nwankwo in Sokoto, in the Pastor Lazarus Muoka crusade in Uyo, and in the sharp fall in Syria's Christian population since 2011. The seperate stories share a hard question: how do communities protect people whose faith, work, or daily errands put them in danger?

Death Sentences in Uganda: Appeal and Execution Unclear

Morning Star News reports that it was not clear whether there would be an appeal.

Morning Star News also reports that executions depend on authorisation by Uganda's president, and that the last execution of convicted civilians in Uganda took place on April 27, 1999, when 28 inmates at Luzira Prison were hanged. Those facts, as reported, mean the sentences handed down in Iganga may stand for a long time without being carried out, and readers should not assume an execution date follows from the judgment.

Two families around Lake Victoria are left with a judgment and a dispute that no sentence can settle on its own. The question of why two men died on a lakeshore in 2024 is still told two ways, and the next chapter, an appeal or a presidential decision, will decide which account the record finally keeps.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.