There were signs in the week prior to the mass cult suicide that something unusual was going on
Anna Borzello in Kanungu, Uganda
A mass of tangled bodies lay sprawled on the floor of the makeshift church. The corrugated tin roof had fallen in from the pressure of the flames, and rain spattered down on the corpses, some of which were still smouldering.
Several looked as if they had died in terror. Their blackened bodies were curled towards the wall, as if shielding themselves from the flames. One man lay on his back, his legs spreadeagled and his arms thrown above his head. The body of a baby – its arm partly missing – lay just outside the main door to the church.
Police estimate that more than 235 men, women and children died in an apparent mass suicide on Friday morning at the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God cult in Kanungu trading centre, in the western Ugandan district of Rukungiri. There were reports that the death toll may be as high as 470.
The followers locked themselves into their church, doused themselves with petrol and then reportedly set themselves ablaze.
“All indications are that we have a mass suicide. We know that the leaders of that sect must have planned it. But we can only really make our final analysis when the pathologists make their report,” said Uganda’s police Inspector General, John Kisembo.
The Restoration of the Ten Commandments cult has been operating since the late 1980s and had a following drawn mainly from the south and central regions, as well as from across the border in neighbouring Rwanda.
Police have a copy of the cult’s membership list, but do not yet know whether they were all in the church when it was set alight.
A steady stream of relatives and friends made their way along the muddy path to the cult headquarters on Sunday to begin the gruesome task of identifying their dead.
Two women wailed as they looked at the charred remains. Another woman, who had lost 10 family members in the fire, wandered around with a fixed smile on her face as if she could not absorb what was happening.
“I’ve come here because we had our relatives here. I had an elder brother and his children who were members of this cult. All five have died here. I had no idea that this would happen,” said Isaac Mugenyi, a dazed young man, as he walked around the site.
The exact circumstances surrounding the death of the followers is still not known. However, police and people living in the area tend to believe the followers chose to kill themselves.
“I was at Kanungu police station when someone came to tell us that these people had locked themselves into a church and set themselves on fire. We went there running, but we found heavy fire and we could do nothing – although we tried our level best,” said Stephen Mujenyi, a security officer.
The cult members appeared to have nailed down the doors and windows from the outside. Then they went inside and set themselves alight.
There had been signs in the week before the deaths that something unusual was going on. The followers had reportedly started selling off their possessions – in readiness for entering heaven. On March 14, they also held a big party, for which they bought crate-loads of Coca- Cola. The long palm fronds, put up for decoration, are now withered outside the new church.
Local people had heard members of the cult talk in biblical terms about their community. “All along they had said that this [church] is the boat of Noah,” said Florence, a local villager. “This is the ark and they were told that at the time of calamity they would come here.
“They were told that at a certain time this year the world would end and so the leaders made it happen and perhaps the people there believed it had happened,” she said.
Police still do not know whether cult leader Joseph Kibwetere and his principal aides – two former Roman Catholic priests – were among those who died in the fire.
Among Uganda’s plethora of religious cults, the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God had been considered fairly innocuous. The group was established in the late 1980s by Kibwetere and registered as a charity with the aim of carrying out observance of the 10 commandments.
The cult still shows its Roman Catholic links; the leader’s modest office has three small statues of Jesus. A crucifix also lay on a chair, covered with a stretch of green cloth.
By the late 1990s, the church had grown into a thriving community. The cult members lived communally on land bought by pooling the profits from their property – which they sold when they joined the cult.
The church buildings were set in plantations of pineapples and bananas. The followers had their own primary school, as well as dormitories where they slept together on simple rush mats. They had recently completed a new church.
Local people described the cult followers as disciplined and polite and said they never gave any trouble. Their only oddity was their habit – on certain days – to converse entirely in hand signals.
“It was properly registered and they were behaving absolutely normally,” the Internal Affairs Minister, Professor Edward Rugamayo, said.
There were perhaps some hints that everything was not as normal as it seemed. In 1998, the cult was closed down for its insanitary conditions and using children as labourers, but then allowed to reopen.
The state-owned New Vision newspaper last year ran an interview with a 19-year-old cult member. “The world ends next year. There is no time to waste. Some of our leaders talk directly to god. Any minute from now, when the end comes, every believer who will be at an as yet undisclosed spot will be saved,” he said.