By Aggrey Baba
Five days after the Ggaba family tragedy shocked the country, a clearer picture is emerging of what happened inside the Kalungu-Bunga home before two children were killed and three others injured in a horrific attack that police are now treating as murder, attempted murder and arson.
The mater initially emerged as a shocking report of a mother allegedly turning on her five children but has since developed into a much deeper story involving a troubled marriage, disagreements over the children’s education, employment and money, a second marriage, and what, according to investigations, was a period of preparation before the fatal night.
Police have now revisited the scene, obtained CCTV footage from the surrounding area and recorded statements from neighbours and first responders. They have also interviewed the injured mother, Dorothy Namayo, 43, and her husband as they try to establish exactly what happened inside the house and what drove the events of August 20.
The Police says the suspect remains admitted at Mulago Hospital under police guard, while one of the surviving children is still receiving treatment. Two other children who survived the attack have been discharged.
But perhaps the biggest question remains: how did a family that had lived together for years reach the point where a domestic dispute ended in a bloodbath?
Wamwoyo’s account to detectives takes the story back to 2011, when she met Edirisa Traore (Nigerian) while the two were shopping at Nakasero Market.
She was reportedly attracted to him and gave him her telephone number after he asked for it. The relationship developed quickly and the two eventually began living together, first around Kibuli before settling in the Bunga area.
At the time, Wamwoyo says Traore told her he was divorced and had no children.
Their first child, Khadija Daisy Traore, was born in January 2012. A second daughter, Delma Aisha, followed in September 2013, and three more children were subsequently born. The couple eventually turned their Bunga residence into the family home.
But according to Wamwoyo’s statement, the relationship that had begun with affection gradually became characterized by disagreements and accusations.
Wamwoyo was not simply a housewife with no life outside the family.
Born in Kenya in 1983 to a Kenyan father and an Acholi (Uganda) mother, she attended school in Kenya before joining Busoga University, where she graduated with a degree in Mass Communication in 2007.
She later worked as a journalist at Captain Mike Mukula’s Voice of Busoga radio in Jinja and subsequently at Kamuli Broadcasting Service (still in Busoga).
After moving to Kampala, she continued pursuing education and reportedly obtained a master’s degree in Human Resource Management from Kampala International University (KIU).
She also tried different businesses and jobs over the years.
But in her statement to detectives, Wamwoyo described repeated quarrels with her husband over her employment and interactions with other people.
She alleged that Traore repeatedly accused her of having relationships with other men, accusations she denied.
At different times, she attempted to operate coffee and maize businesses before later securing employment.
The employment issue would eventually become one of the recurring sources of conflict in the home.
According to Wamwoyo, Traore sometimes prevented her from working because of his concerns about where she was going and the people she interacted with.
She said that in 2026 she secured work with the Uganda Revenue Authority ((URA) where her duties sometimes required her to return home late.
She alleged that Traore objected to the late hours and at times took away the keys to a vehicle she was using for work.
The disagreement escalated to the point where she transferred ownership of the vehicle he had bought for her, to a friend in an attempt to continue using it for her work. That arrangement eventually collapsed.
Wamwoyo told detectives that Traore took the vehicle and reported the matter to Kabalagala Police. She said the dispute contributed to her losing her job in May.
The family, according to her account, was therefore already under considerable strain months before she killed the innocent children.
Police now say Wamwoyo attributed the August 20 attack to ongoing domestic violence in the marriage.
In her statement, she described another major turning point in April when Traore allegedly informed her that he would only spend two nights a week at their Bunga home because he had another wife with whom he would spend the remaining days, a development which reportedly affected Wamwoyo deeply.
She told the police that she subsequently refused to have sex with Traore until they underwent HIV tests.
According to her account, she believed his behaviour towards her and the children changed after that disagreement.
The dispute over the children then added another layer to the deteriorating relationship.
Traore reportedly wanted two of the children moved from their schools to Ever Light College in Kalungu, closer to the family home, which Wamwoyo opposed arguing that transferring the children in the middle of the school year could interfere with their education.
The disagreement came to a head on the eve of the attack, when Traore reportedly wanted Daisy and Delma (two of the five children) to accompany him to the school to meet the headteacher.
Wamwoyo persuaded him to first return home so they could discuss the matter, and ccording to the account given in her statement, the discussion at home deteriorated into another fight.
Police are now examining this disagreement, together with the wider marriage problems, as they reconstruct the circumstances leading to the attack.
Importantly, police have not said that any single dispute has been conclusively established as the motive, but their latest official update says Wamwoyo attributed the incident to ongoing domestic violence, while investigations continue.
A confrontation reportedly followed, with Wamwoyo alleging that she was physically assaulted.
The children intervened and a family friend was contacted in an attempt to calm the situation when one of the children called him on phone, and Traore eventually left.
But investigators believe that by then Wamwoyo had already been contemplating a much darker course of action.
Police have since recorded statements from the husband, neighbours and first responders as they attempt to establish what happened during the hours between the family disagreement and the killing.
She allegedly acquired three knives from Kikubo, and on the day of the tragedy, she reportedly left home under the pretext of taking her daughters’ phones for repair. Instead, she went to a petrol station in Bunga and bought petro, and also obtained sleeping tablets on her way back.
Police are examining these purchases as they seek to determine whether the attack was carefully planned or whether the items were acquired as part of a rapidly escalating crisis. They have also recovered a jerrycan suspected to have contained petrol from the scene and are conducting forensic examinations of exhibits collected from the home.
According to her statement, she later gave the children sleeping tablets before they went to their rooms.
What followed was a horrifying sequence in which the children were attacked with knives.
Police’s initial account confirmed that 14-year-old Khadija Daisy was found dead in her bedroom, while another daughter, Hawa Dalena, later died after being taken to hospital while three other children survived with injuries.
The official police update later confirmed that the bodies of the two deceased children were handed over to their father following postmortem examinations and that they were buried at Kololo Muslim Cemetery on August 21.
The housemaid was reportedly awakened by the alarm and the children’s cries.
Neighbours were alerted and attempted to gain entry, but the gate and doors reportedly presented obstacles to rescuers, forcing people at the scene to find ways into the compound and house.
Eventually, the children were rescued and rushed for medical attention, and the mother’s own rescue followed after she was found injured.
Police say the children were taken to hospital, while Wamwoyo was admitted at Mulago under police guard.
Police have since obtained CCTV footage from cameras in the surrounding area and recorded statements from neighbours and people who responded to the children’s cries.
The suspect was interviewed on August 22 and gave detectives a detailed statement. Her husband was also interviewed and gave his own account.
According to police, both accounts are now part of an investigation that is still ongoing, meaning that the version of events contained in Wamwoyo’s statement is not yet a court-established account of what happened, since investigators still have to compare it with the husband’s statement, witness accounts, CCTV footage, forensic evidence and other exhibits before determining the full sequence of events.
According to the latest police update, two of the surviving children were discharged from hospital on August 22, while another remained admitted and was reported to be in stable condition.
Their survival means the case will also depend heavily on what investigators can establish from the evidence surrounding them and from the broader reconstruction of the night.
The Ggaba massacre has therefore become more than a story about one horrific night, but a family relationship that investigators say had been deteriorating, a mother who says she was trapped in prolonged domestic conflict, children who became victims of a dispute they did not create, and a sequence of events that escalated from marital disagreement to murder, attempted murder and arson. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
