Police on Tuesday afternoon had to fire rounds of bullets in the air in a bid to save KCCA enforcement officers who came under attack by angry vendors in the city center.
The fight started as the enforcement officers tried to send the vendors off the street near the old taxi park but the latter were adamant to remove their merchandise.
A KCCA officer confiscating vendors merchandise
The enforcement officers started confiscating the merchandise as they bundled it on the waiting KCCA pickup trucks to it to City Hall.
This angered the vendors who in retaliation beat up the enforcement officers, leaving some of them blooded, which forced police to intervene.
Some of the officers were destructive
The Kampala South Regional Police Commander Geoffrey Kaheebwa butted in which his force and arrested some of the rowdy vendors.
Second Phase
Meanwhile, the KCCA enforcement officers who looked angered by traders returned and resumed their work of evicting the traders, mostly those dealing in food in the old taxi park.
The officers, who were now not listening to advice from RPC Kaheebwa on how to handle the situation, were seen mercilessly destroying property including cooked food as the vendors looked on helplessly.
Most of them (vendors) were seen crying after losing their property.
One of the vendors was undressed by the KCCA enforcement team (Photos by Kenneth Kazibwe)
“We were trying to move our property but they didn’t let us complete and our property was destroyed. This is not the Kampala that President Museveni wishes for his voters,” cried one Masitula Nambooze.
“We ask him (President Museveni) to intervene because this state of affairs can’t go on as he watches.”
Officers dragging the vendors of the streets
The food vendors eventually back, throwing stones at the KCCA enforcement officers prompting police to fire more bullets in the air to disperse the crowds.
In an interview with Chimpreports, Kaheebwa said, “We had to come in to save the situation,” he said.
Over 20 vendors were in the end arrested as well as their property confiscated by KCCA enforcement officers.
Government a few weeks ago ordered vendors off the streets following complaints from Kampala City Traders Association.