Security forces operating in the Karamoja area say a total of 413 cattle rustlers have been killed in the past twelve months alone.
The rustlers had rebelled to peacefully hand over their weapons to police and the military during an ongoing disarmament exercise the Karamoja region.
Also, 10,074 rustlers were arrested,1,970 remanded and 370 have since been sentenced since the exercise began.
Micheal Longole the Karamoja Regional Police Spokesperson says police and the Army were compelled to gun down the rustlers during a fire exchange.
The rustlers were were put out of action between July 17th 2021 and July 2022 ,the same period, the forces managed to recover 557 guns and 3,167 rounds of ammunition.
“Within that period our forces managed to recover 23,034 animals from rustlers and we are continuing with the operations,” he said.
However, Joseph Losukari, a village peace activist in Mogoth village in Rupa sub-county, said the number of the killed rustlers could be more than what the forces have counted.
“We have lost our children who don’t want to listen to our elders’ advice not to continue with raids, to me the number that the forces are accounting is less,” he said.
Losukari has projected that if it was a proper counting of the killed rustlers in Karamoja, the number can reach 2,000.
Mariko Loputhyang another resident said the Karamoja region no longer has a big population of youth adding that the youth that the region would rely on have died in cattle rustling activities.
“We don’t have a big population of youth to take Karamoja to another level, the majority of the youths have been killed in the bush,” he lamented.