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![Security forces have clashed with supporters of a traditional Ugandan king for two days [Reuters]](http://mwcnews.net/images/stories/Africa/A/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/Uganda-riots.jpg "Security forces have clashed with supporters of a traditional Ugandan king for two days [Reuters]") | | Security forces have clashed with supporters of a traditional Ugandan king for two days [Reuters] |
At least nine people have been killed in Uganda's capital, Kampala, during two days of clashes between security forces and supporters of the king of one of the country's ethnic groups, witnesses said.
Gunfire rang out on the outskirts of the city as the unrest entered its second day on Friday. Witnesses said they saw the bodies of a man apparently shot in the back and a teenage boy shot in the head. Police, backed by the military, sprayed tear gas and opened fire to disperse stone-throwing protesters on the streets of the capital. Shops in the centre of Kampala were closed and most workers and school children stayed at home, resident said. The violence erupted on Thursday after Ugandan authorities banned Ronald Muwenda Mutebi, the king of the Baganda people, Uganda's largest ethnic group, from travelling to a region northeast of the capital, citing fears of violence. Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan president, said in a televised address to the nation on Friday that his government would not give in and allow Mutebi into Kayunga county, an area on the edge of his jurisdiction as cultural leader. "I told him [the king] that the meeting in Kayunga will not take place until some conditions that will be communicated to him by the minister of internal affairs are met," Museveni said. Ancient kingdom Medard Ssegona, the deputy information minister for Mutebi's Buganda Kingdom, said that the community was ready for talks with the government but would not back down in its calls to be allowed into Kayunga. "We are not going to be intimidated by the government into giving up our demands" Medard Ssegona, deputy information minister for the Buganda kingdom Buganda is one of the east African nation's four ancient kingdoms. It was abolished by Milton Obote, the former leader, in 1966 but restored by Museveni in the early 1990s. The kingdoms have historically had tense relations with the central government and the Baganda have previously been involved in disputes with Kampala over land in and around the capital. The Baganda are in the majority in central Uganda and a loss of the group as a voter base could weaken Museveni's position in the country's next election. The traditional Baganda king holds a largely ceremonial position in Uganda, but holds considerable influence among the Baganda.
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