The 17-year-old boy was a casual labourer in the tomato farms in Lwanda Sub-county, Rakai District. His mother, Teopista Nansubuga, who works in a stone quarry, says she raised Ssenkima on her own.

“I separated with the father of my two children 10 years ago.

However, as a single mother, I failed to raise their school fees. Fred dropped out of school in Primary Five and we found a job for him as a herdsman,” the mother said.

Besides working on other people’s farms, Ssenkima had also started growing his own tomatoes for sale.

“Fred was my everything because he looked after me like I was his daughter. He lived in Lwanda Town, but he would check on me after every two days and buy all the basic things I needed at home because he knew I could not afford to care for his young sister single-handedly [since] I earn[ed] Shs40,000 a month.”

Ssenkima’s father four months ago drowned in Lake Victoria. On the day he died, Nansubuga met her son and warned him not to join the youths who were rioting.

“He told me that he treasured his life and that he would stay in his room and only move when necessary,” the distraught mother says.

Witnesses say Ssenkima was shot by people who were trying to quell the riots.

He was buried in Ngono Village, Kabira Sub-county, in Kyotera District. No government or security official has contacted the mother over getting justice for her son.

Mother had advised the herdsman to stay home.