Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire dumped at border after release from Tanzania

Ugandan lawyer and journalist Agather Atuhaire was found last night dumped near the  border of Tanzania and Uganda, her family and friends have confirmed.

Human rights activist Nicholas Opiyo revealed on social media to have spoken to her and that she was headed to her home.

“Finally, Agather has been found, and I have talked to her via her sister’s phone right now. She was picked from the border,” Godwin Toko posted on X.Human rights activist Nicholas Opiyo also confirmed he has talked to her.“Agather is on her way home. She was dumped at the Mutukula Border last night – we spoke a little while ago,” Opiyo stated.

Her release came a few hours after the Uganda High Commission in Tanzania had written to the Tanzania authorities in Dar es Salaam seeking to visit the governance advocate at the Central Police station.

This was hours after Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi was released and dumped in Kwale by the Tanzanian authorities.

Atuhaire and Mwangi were arrested and detained in Tanzania earlier this week, where they had gone to support Tanzania opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who was appearing in court over his treason charges.

Speaking after his release, Mwangi said their arrest was politically motivated and they had an inhuman ordeal.

Mwangi narrated that the last time they were in the same place with Atuhaire was on Tuesday morning before they were told to strip naked and wash off their bleeding from the torture they had undergone.

“We had been tortured, and we were told to strip naked and to go bathe. We couldn’t walk and were told to crawl and go wash off the blood,” he wrote on his social media.

He revealed that they were later handcuffed and blindfolded, hence they never saw each other again.

“We were handcuffed and blindfolded, so I didn’t even see her, but I heard her groaning in pain as they barked orders at us,” he said.

“Any attempt to speak to each other during the night we were tortured was met with kicks and insults. We were removed from the torture location in different vehicles,” he added.

He claimed that the torture they faced was orchestrated by a Tanzanian state security officer who followed them from the Immigration offices to the Central Police Station and ordered their removal to a secret location for what was termed as “Tanzanian treatment.”

“That man assaulted me in the presence of three lawyers from the Tanganyika Law Society, and identifying him might help us find where Agather is being kept. He scared the three lawyers, and they left us at Central Police Station, where we were removed while handcuffed and blindfolded,” he said.