Kiira region police have tracked down and arrested 18-year-old, Slyvia Doreen Bakita for the attempted ritual murder of 10-month-old, Devine Namuganza. She was picked from her home in Ikumbya trading center in Ikumbya sub-county in Luuka district on Sunday night.
Police acted on a tip-off from the suspect’s neighbours after noticing her living with a child, yet she has never given birth to children of her own. Bakita is reported to have stolen Namuganza from the prayer palace church on February 13th, 2022.
Namuganza’s mother, Sarah Wandovu says that Bakita spent almost the whole day in church and participated in all the three main sermons of the church, camouflaging as a devout Christian who had dedicated the whole day to God only to steal the child in the evening session.
Bakita has since reportedly confessed to having planned together with her boyfriend a month ago, whose identities have been withheld, to sacrifice a female child to appease the gods, who would, in turn, award them wealth.
Bakita says that her boyfriend gave her Shillings 100,000 to kickstart the mission and she, in turn, spent a night at Chambers gardens lodge in Jinja City Northern division, while pondering how she could steal a child from one of the churches within the area.
Bakita says that all the four churches she attempted to steal children from had stringent measures like tight security checks at the entrance and exit, which partly frustrated her plans. She, however, noticed that at the prayer palace, strangers would freely interact with other people’s children and when she got hold of Namuganza, she just fled off with her unnoticed.
Bakita says that the child sacrifice rituals were meant to be conducted on Wednesday last week, but her boyfriend failed to pay Shillings 2.5 Million, which he had promised to pay upon receipt of the child.
“He made arrangements to sacrifice the child from a shrine within our area and he had, in turn, promised to reward me with 2.5 Million Shillings as a token of appreciation for successfully delivering the child into his him but, on returning home, he told me to hold on to our plans for about two weeks, as he strategizes to acquire all the items needed in the whole ritual sacrifice process,” she says.
Kiira Region Police spokesperson, James Mubi, says that the suspect face child trafficking and attempted child sacrifice charges. Mubi says that detectives have been dispatched to track down Bakita’s boyfriend and their other accomplices, who have since fled into hiding in Namwendwa sub-county, in Kamuli district.
This incident comes barely six months after a four-year-old child was killed for ritual sacrifices by pastor Joseph Sserubiri and his wife in Kakira town council, in Jinja district in September last year. The duo are battling charges of human trafficking and child sacrifice. They are currently on remand in Kirinya prisons.
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