A visibly shaken and distraught Barbie Itungo Kyagulanyi, wife to National Unity Platform (NUP) Principal Roberty Kyagulanyi Sentamu aka Bobi wine has revealed that she was strangled, stripped of her clothes by the soldiers who raided their Magere home on Friday night.
While addressing journalists from her hospital bed at St Francis Hospital Nsambya where she was admitted after the gruesome ordeal on Friday night, Barbie narrated how the group of heavily armed, drunk soldiers who had a similar appearance and all spoke one language broke into the homes lower gate to access the premises.
“Our askari saw them and called me, I had already gone to bed and was just preparing to read one page of my book and then sleep” she said.
Barbie noted that after being informed by her private security guard of the many men entering the home, she got out of bed, switched off the bed light, then tried to walk out of the bedroom and look for a place to hide.
“But then I realised that wasn’t the wise thing to do, I opened the bedroom again, went in, opened the balcony room, to make a video of at least some evidence of these people who were coming in” she noted.
She added, “I just shot a small snippet, because already they had ladders and they were climbing our veranda. So, when I shot that, I locked the veranda door again, went in, sent the video to our son, Solomon, and I asked him to let people know that we were under attack. Then I called our other son, who is also my brother-in-law, Dax, and I told him, we are finished, these people are coming in definitely”.
Barbie further narrated that she then walked out of the room, locked the door, and then went down the stairs and looked through the window to find a large group of men outside who ordered her to open the door in Runyakole to which she declined in the same dialect.
“So, I passed the stairs, went to the general bathroom, locked the door, and called one of our neighbours whom I informed that we had a problem, when I came out of the room, they were already coming into the sitting room. They had finished breaking everything. There were so many, they went to all directions of the house, Ceiling, rooms, kitchen, outside in the compound, my bedroom, kids’ bedrooms, bathrooms, everywhere. They were everywhere” she narrated.
Barbie revealed that she wasn’t allowed to follow any of the soldiers and one of the soldiers approached her demanding for her phone which she handed over to him before ordering her in Runyakole to give them the password to her phone which she refused.
“He left, went outside on the veranda, came with other four men, when he came back, he went in the same position where he was, lifted me by the trousers, I was wearing night trousers and a shirt and then the one who was standing in front of me, strangled me by the neck from the front and told me, give me the password, I told him in his face, I will not give you the password” she said.
She added, “The one who was behind me pulled my shirt, so, now I was between two men, one was strangling me and one was pulling my shirt. The button was choking me here (throat), I kicked the man who was in front of me in some place very hard, and he walked away. Then this one pulled me and all the buttons broke and he stayed with the shirt in his hands, so, I walked across the room naked”.
An emotional Barbie noted that at that moment some of the men shied away from looking at her while others blatantly stared on and was only saved by one soldier who objected to the act in Luganda saying “Neda Neda Neda, Maama mumudize esaati ye ayambale” loosely translating to “No no no, give back maama her shirt to wear”.
“It was on the floor, one of them picked it and said raise your hands and I said, no, give me the shirt, I’ll dress myself up, he gave it to me. In that moment, the other guy who took my phone and tore my shirt in the beginning came back and held me by my hair and pushed me all the way up to the pole across the seating room and I hit my knee, then told me bring the password, I told him there is no password”.
Barbie noted that at this moment, the same soldier pulled her down on the floor and the soldiers then sat on her.
“I think, there was someone overseeing everything. He asked them, what’s happening here, leave her, they then went, I sat on the floor and in that moment, I felt thirsty, nauseous and dizzy. My body was confused, I asked for water, they brought me a glass of water, I asked for more.
They gave me another glass and that was the last I realised, the next moment that I got to realise, I was on the veranda, sleeping in my own home” she noted.
Barbie noted that the soldiers who throughout this time where asking for the whereabouts of her husband, also brutally questioned her security guard on the whereabouts of the children, parked all electrical gadgets in the house from mobile phones to CCTV cameras, leaving the house trashed in their wake.
Barbie who further revealed that the soldiers critiqued her for marrying a Muganda instead of a Munyakole has since asked her husband Bobi Wine who is still in hiding to stay there and not come out on her accord.
On Saturday, Bobi Wine took to his X account to reveal that most of the soldiers involved in the raid were dressed in SFC uniforms while others were in regular UPDF uniforms and others in plain clothes.
“They put my wife on gunpoint, asking her to reveal my whereabouts. They stole money, numerous valuable documents, and all electronic gadgets. They took phones, laptops, chargers, our internet system, our CCTV system, speakers, and any electronic gadget they could lay their criminal hands on. They entered every part of our house, including the ceiling, and left so much destruction everywhere. They grabbed my wife’s phone, forced her to sit down, and ordered her to remove her password. She refused. They strangled her and insulted her. They forcefully removed her blouse and took pictures! Speaking Runyakore, they asked why she would get married to a muganda, and why we would dare challenge Museveni” Bobi Wine posted.
