By Dr. Rosemary Alwoc-OgwalÂ
The danger is known. The causes are known. The solutions are known. What Uganda lacks is consistent implementation—and a reliable system for counting the lives being lost.
On Tuesday, 25 August 2026, families and communities will gather for a funeral service for four members of one family from Dokolo District who drowned in a flooded section of a government-maintained road in neighbouring Apac District.
Ogwang Richard, 52, travelled on Sunday, 16 August, with his three sons – Angulu Kenneth, 26; Opio Maxwell, 23; and Odeng Gerald, 19, to discuss the traditional marriage of his daughter. They never made it home.
Richard, Kenneth and Maxwell were buried on the day their remains were recovered. Gerald’s remains were recovered three days later, on 19 August.
Their deaths are devastating in themselves. But they also illustrate a much larger national problem: Uganda is struggling to prevent drowning deaths while lacking a reliable system for determining how many people are dying, where they are dying and under what circumstances.
Drowning is not an inevitable consequence of living near water.
It is a preventable public health emergency.
A crisis we cannot reliably count
Most drowning deaths in Uganda go unreported.
Makerere University’s School of Public Health estimates that 30,000 people drown in Uganda every decade. Researchers, however, acknowledge that this is likely a conservative estimate because Uganda does not have a specialised national system for comprehensively recording drowning incidents.
Studies including Understanding and Preventing Drowning in Uganda and the Global Status Report on Drowning Prevention 2024 have highlighted the difficulty of establishing the true national burden.
Among recorded drowning cases in the 2018 profile, 38% of victims were aged 15–29, 27% were aged 30–49, 16% were aged 5–14, 11% were aged 0–4 and 8% were aged 50–69. Males accounted for 85% of recorded victims, compared with 15% who were female.
But these figures describe only the cases that enter the reporting system.
In A Qualitative Study of the Causes and Circumstances of Drowning in Uganda, Anthony Buyinza Mugeere, Frederick Oporia and Olive Kobusingye found that Uganda has no specialised national system for recording drowning cases. Where records exist, they are often maintained manually, while incidents reported at police posts and stations are not consistently transmitted to district authorities or national databases.
The result is substantial under-reporting.
And the consequences go far beyond statistics.
Every missing entry represents a person who died traumatically, a family forced to confront a sudden and often distressing death, and a community left to cope with the consequences.
Right now, Uganda does not know the true scale of its drowning crisis.
That uncertainty is itself part of the crisis.
The warning signs are everywhere
Recent incidents suggest that drowning is occurring across a range of environments and circumstances: flooded roads, lakes, rivers and fishing communities.
These are not isolated or mysterious events.
They reflect recurring hazards: flooded public roads, overloaded or poorly maintained vessels, lack of life jackets, extreme weather, unsafe boat operations, intoxication or medical conditions that can cause passengers to fall overboard, and encounters with wildlife that can destabilise boats and canoes.
The causes are identifiable.
So are many of the solutions.
FOUR TRAGEDIES, ONE RECURRING PATTERN
The individual cases below reveal what national statistics cannot: behind every drowning is a person, a family and a community.
LAKE KWANIA: FOUR MEMBERS OF ONE FAMILY
On Sunday, 16 August 2026, Ogwang Richard, 52, left Idaiol village in Alapata Parish, Bata Sub-county, Dokolo North, to discuss the traditional marriage of his daughter in Acullobo village, Amiaberidwogo Parish, Ibuje Sub-county, Apac District.
He travelled with his three sons: Angulu Kenneth, 26; Opio Maxwell, 23; and Odeng Gerald, 19.
After an initial dowry payment was negotiated, the family began the journey home to Dokolo District. They boarded a dugout canoe to cross a flooded section of road connecting Corner Amii through Alworoceng Atapara Junction.
There were no life jackets distributed to communities in the area.
According to eyewitness accounts, strong winds caused the canoe to capsize. Two passengers survived.
Four members of the same family drowned.
The tragedy did not end with their deaths.
Richard’s widows, Polly and Evelyn Ogwang, rushed to the scene and identified the human remains. The bodies of Richard, Kenneth and Maxwell were wrapped in straw mats and buried that same evening without coffins. Gerald’s remains were recovered and buried three days later, on 19 August.
In Lango culture, the remains of a drowning victim cannot be laid out for viewing nor enter the family home before burial.
For this family, the manner of death therefore brought not only grief, but additional disruption to customary mourning and burial practices.
According to Hon. Peter Obong Acuda, four members of another family drowned on the same public road the previous week. More than 15 people reportedly drowned on the road during the preceding four weeks.
The numbers are staggering.
But the human cost is greater.
LAKE BUNYONYI: WHEN EXTREME WEATHER TURNS DEADLY
On 26 July 2026, Rebecca Ndamwesiga, 20, a resident of Kyevu village in Butanda Sub-county, Kabale District, was rowing a canoe on Lake Bunyonyi.
She was transporting Johnson Tumukunde Spensor, 45, the head teacher of Musamba Primary School, to Musamba Church of Uganda in Rubaya Sub-county.
After conducting Sunday school activities, they began their journey home.
At approximately 9:30 a.m., strong winds struck. The canoe filled with water and overturned.
Tumukunde’s remains were not recovered for five days.
Once again, a known hazard—strong winds—combined with a vulnerable small craft to produce a fatal and preventable outcome.
LAKE ALBERT: WHEN GOING TO WORK BECOMES LIFE-THREATENING
On 13 July 2026, Bedjo Onega, 38, of Wanseko Landing Site in Buliisa District, was fishing on Lake Albert.
A hippopotamus rammed his canoe, causing it to capsize.
His fishing colleague managed to swim to safety.
Bedjo was last seen sinking beneath the surface.
After an extensive search lasting more than a week, authorities concluded that his remains had likely been destroyed by crocodile activity in the area.
For his family, there was no body to bury—only the knowledge that he had gone to work and never returned.
This too is part of Uganda’s drowning crisis: people whose livelihoods depend on water are routinely exposed to hazards that are known, recurring and, in many cases, manageable.
RIVER NGUSE: THE CATASTROPHIC COST OF OVERLOADING
On 28 April 2026, a night-travelling canoe carrying 35 people instead of its intended capacity of 15 capsized at Kyaleni village, Pachwa Town Council, Kagadi District.
The remains of 30 people were recovered.
Only one identified survivor was reported: Byaruhanga Tumuhaise, 27, a resident of Kyaleni village.
The incident demonstrates the catastrophic consequences of allowing passengers to travel in vessels carrying more than twice their intended capacity.
We thank President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s personal contribution of UGx 150 million to affected families in Kagadi District, as well as Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja’s personal contribution of UGx 20 million to the search and recovery committee.
Policy must reach the people at risk
Uganda already knows many of the measures that can prevent drowning.
They include repairing flooded sections of public roads; ensuring boats are safe and properly maintained; enforcing vessel loading limits; providing and enforcing the use of life jackets; issuing timely weather warnings; ensuring boat operators are competent; educating communities about water safety; teaching swimming and water-survival skills; training first responders in rescue and resuscitation; and reliably recording every drowning incident.
Marine Notice No. 001/2026, issued by the Ministry of Works and Transport, requires the use of life jackets and tighter safety measures on inland waterways during the period of seasonal strong winds and turbulent waves from July to October.
That is an important policy measure.
On 2 July 2026, Pupils commute from Bata Island, Awelo Parish, Adeknino Sub-county, Dokolo South to Abalang Modern Primary School, on a flooded Government maintained roadway in Dokolo District.
But a policy issued in Kampala does not save someone crossing a flooded road in Dokolo, Amolatar, Kwania or Apac Districts. Nor does it protect communities in Kabale, Buliisa or Kagadi Districts unless those communities have access to the equipment, information, infrastructure and enforcement necessary to make the policy meaningful.
For many rural families, a life jacket is not a routine safety device.
Some have never even seen one, let alone been able to afford one.
The gap between policy and reality is visible on our flooded roads, lakes, rivers and waterways.
From reacting to preventing
As a nation we must move from reacting, to preventing drowning tragedies.
We know where many of the risks occur. We know that communities are increasingly exposed to roads and waterways made dangerous by climate change raising water levels and bringing extreme weather. We know that life jackets save lives. We know that overloaded and poorly maintained vessels are dangerous. We know that people who depend on fishing and water transport need practical safety measures.
We also know that children and young people need swimming and water-survival skills, while first responders need training in rescue and resuscitation.
And we know that fragmented reporting prevents the country from understanding the full scale of the problem.
Uganda is therefore attempting to address a national public-health emergency without reliably knowing exactly how many people are dying.
We should not have to guess.
The country unveiled a national drowning prevention strategy last year. The priority now must be implementation at community level, backed by clear responsibilities, adequate funding, enforcement and measurable targets.
That means establishing a national drowning surveillance and reporting system linking communities, police, health facilities, districts and central government.
It means mandatory reporting and registration of drowning deaths.
It means distributing life jackets and enforcing loading limits.
It means inspecting and licensing boats and canoes used for passenger transport.
It means providing locally accessible weather and dangerous-water warnings.
It means community-based water-safety education, swimming and survival-skills programmes for children, and training community first responders in rescue and resuscitation.
It means targeted protection for fishing communities and people who depend on water transport.
And it means regularly publishing national and district-level drowning data so resources can be directed to the places at greatest risk.
The World Health Organization describes drowning prevention as an area in which feasible, low-cost and scalable interventions can save lives.
Uganda does not need to wait for perfect information before acting.
We need to use the information we already have, and build a system capable of producing better information tomorrow.
Every drowning is a call to action
We cannot prevent every accident.
But we can prevent far more drowning deaths than we currently do.
The greatest danger is not only that our people are drowning.
It is that they are drowning in a system that does not reliably count them, does not consistently protect them and does not yet implement known prevention measures everywhere they are needed.
As we gather for the funeral service for Ogwang Richard, Angulu Kenneth, Opio Maxwell and Odeng Gerald in Dokolo District, the choice before us is not between doing nothing and eliminating every drowning. It is between continuing to accept 30,000 preventable deaths every decade as inevitable and deciding that every life, lost to drowning matters.
Uganda has the evidence.
We have the knowledge.
We have the policy framework.
What is needed now is implementation, accountability and urgency.
Because every drowning death is more than a statistic.
It is a person who should have come home.
