Unverified photos showing a possible massacre in Kasese, Uganda after Ugandan police clashed with a separatist militia believed to be linked to one of the country’s tribal Kings.
According to Uganda’s police spokesman, police stormed the palace of King Charles Wesley Mumbere of the Ruwenzururu kingdom on Sunday, after heavy fighting broke out on Saturday in the western town of Kasese when the King’s royal guards attacked patrolling security forces with an improvised grenade, killing 14 police officers and 41 militants.
On the morning of the king’s arrest, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni had called and ordered him to disband the guards, who are believed to be part of a militia agitating for the creation of an independent republic straddling Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Ruwenzururu kingdom is a traditional monarchy based near the Rwenzori mountains which straddle Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, of the Bakonzo people -- with supporters among those who share the same culture and language in the DRC.
The monarchy started out as a separatist movement of the same name when the Bakonzo -- tired of being subjected to the rule of another tribe under colonial rule -- declared their own kingdom in 1962.