/ 23 March 2000

CULT LEADERS COULD BE ALIVE

TWO main leaders of Uganda’s suicide doomsday cult left their compound before hundreds of members died there and are now at large, a witness told Thursday’s daily New Vision Newspaper. ”Cult leaders Joseph Kibwetere and Credonia Mwerinde prayed for us on Thursday night and then they left the camp. They did not attend the early morning prayers” on Friday, a teenaged member named as Ahimbisibwe told the paper. At least 330 members of the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God cult, including 78 children, died later on Friday when fire, possibly the result of explosions, engulfed a church in the compound in the southwestern village of Kanungu. Ahimbisibwe, who left the camp before the blaze, claimed that he saw Kibwetere and Mwerinde leaving in the early hours of Friday morning, each carrying a small bag. The Ugandan government said in response that it had instructed police to search for and apprehend the cult leaders.