Miria Matembe goes missing

Veteran politician and women’s rights activist Miria Matembe has gone missing, with her family appealing to the public for information about her whereabouts after security operatives raided her home earlier this week.

Media personality JK Kazoora, a relative of Matembe, said the family has been unable to trace her and fears she may have been picked up by security personnel while out jogging.

“They went to her home in Luzira, but she was not there because she had gone jogging. We suspect they could have met her while jogging and taken her,” Kazoora said, urging anyone with information to contact the family.

The appeal comes days after security operatives raided Matembe’s home in Luzira.

According to her husband, Nehemiah Matembe, the operatives searched the house without identifying themselves or explaining why they had come. He said they left without finding her.

Nehemiah said the group included uniformed soldiers and plain-clothed operatives who arrived in a vehicle commonly known as a “drone”. He said they searched every room in the house while armed personnel guarded the compound.

He believes the operatives intended to arrest or abduct his wife.

At the time of the raid, Matembe had already left home for her morning exercise. Her phones later became unreachable.

The incident sparked condemnation from women activists, who accused security agencies of ignoring due process.

Speaking during an Uganda Women’s Movement press conference held in solidarity with Matembe, human rights activist Dr Sarah Bireete said security personnel later raided her home after apparently suspecting she was hiding the former minister.

Bireete said the operatives searched her home, stole money from her bag and even dug a hole in her son’s bedroom before leaving.

She described the raids as evidence of poor intelligence gathering and urged security agencies to issue police summons where they suspect criminal wrongdoing instead of conducting raids.

Matembe, a former Ethics and Integrity minister and one of the architects of Uganda’s 1995 Constitution, has become one of the government’s strongest critics in recent years.

She has repeatedly criticised alleged human rights abuses, enforced disappearances and the growing role of the military in politics.

Matembe’s relationship with the ruling National Resistance Movement deteriorated in 2003 after she opposed the removal of presidential term limits.