The Bududa district leadership has declared the landslide site in Bushika sub-county a mass grave.
Landslides hit Bushika sub-county on December 3 this year and swept away three villages of Namasa, Shikhururwe and Naposhi displacing over 200 families and killing an estimated 40 people.
Efforts to recover the bodies of the people who were buried during the landslides have been ongoing for the last two weeks. By last week at least some 26 bodies had been recovered.
According to Wilson Watira, the Bududa district LCV chairperson, bodies of the recovered people were identified and handed over to their relatives for burial.
“For the last three weeks we have been trying to excavate bodies of people who were missing. We managed to retrieve some bodies and we have now stopped the excavation but 21 people are unaccounted for,” said Watira.
He said the district council resolved that the remaining people be buried in a mass grave to allow people settle down and stop camping at the site every day with anticipation of finding their relatives yet it has become impossible to get any more survivors.
“We decided that the place be turned into a burial ground and that no person should be left to live there. In future we hope the place will become a tourist attraction,” he added.
Simaya Mabuko, the Bushika sub county district councilor welcomed the idea of gazetting the area into a mass grave. He said this will also help the people know where their relatives were buried.
“That place should have a monument and no activity should be done there to allow people who lost their relatives to visit it at any time of their choice,” he noted.
The district authorities have decided to hold a memorial mass for those that died during the landslide early next month.