2025 has been full of shocks. In this two-part series, we look back at some of the more notable deaths that left Uganda and the world, and whose passage will have ramifications for years to come.
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Risdel Kasasira, Journalist, 45, January 2, 2025
One of Uganda’s finest security reporters, Risdel Kasasira, was a journalist for 17 years, many of those years with the Daily Monitor. His specialty was reporting on the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), a notoriously opaque organisation loath to share information.
Somehow Kasasira managed to cultivate sources and trust within the army without compromising his journalistic independence, a rare feat. Died in a car accident on Masaka road; his wife, who was driving, and two children survived with injuries.
Muhammad Ssegirinya, Politician, 37, January 9, 2025
A fast-rising politician who understood better than most how to utilise modern social media to his advantage, Muhammad used Facebook and publicity stunts to raise his profile to the extent of becoming a Kawempe North Member of Parliament in 2021.
Among his supporters, his self-chosen moniker was Mr. Update. Ssegirinya’s legislative career was interrupted by 17 months’ imprisonment, out of which he emerged in 2023, sickly, a pale shadow of his vibrant, witty self. Despite long hospitalisation, his death was unexpected.
Irv Gotti, Music Producer, 54
If you have ever hummed, danced, or more to “What’s Luv,” “Foolish,” or felt like you could take on any of the world’s challenges with “What’s My Name?”, you were appreciating Irv Gotti’s work. Under Murder Inc., which he founded, Gotti shepherded the careers of DMX, Ja Rule, and Ashanti to chart-selling status that African American performers had never enjoyed in the late 1990s and 2000s. Gotti played a pivotal role in the spread of American culture around the world through music.
Martha Ahumuza Murari, Human Resource Manager
Unknown to the general public until her death, the circumstances surrounding Martha Ahumuza Murari’s untimely passing gripped the public like few other demises have. Martha’s combination of being born in privilege, beauty, and dying doing what every young person of her age should do safely, at a bar called Mezo Noir, seemed to shock the nation.
Whispers of control, exclusive house parties, and illegal substances sold under the counter in high-end venues remained just that as police said they were investigating suspected poisoning as the cause of death. A national discourse on drugs was deferred as she was laid to rest in Mbarara, western Uganda.
UPDF soldiers killed in DRC, March 2025
The death of Col. David Byaruhanga, the 409 brigade commander, in battle in the DRC raised eyebrows. Officially, three soldiers died along Col. Byaruhanga in what the army spokesperson Chris Magezi described as an equipment failure. An explanation difficult to buy as a colonel is a high-ranking officer who would not normally be the one to tinker with a malfunctioning RPG when a camp is under fire.
Around the same time, though, the X timeline would be populated, here and there, by posters announcing the death in combat of relatives in the army. The number of soldiers the country has lost in DRC over the years has never been definitively shared. Uganda has been involved in the eastern side of the Democratic Republic of Congo since the mid-1990s, when it supported the ascent of Desire Kabila to power in Kinshasa, ousting longtime ruler Mobutu Sese Seko.
*To Be Continued Next Week
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