14 July 2010 | 10-0488 |

Fredrick Nzwili
Nairobi (ENI). Anglican Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda has denounced as a "hideous crime", the bomb attacks in Kampala which occurred during the playing of the 2010 World Cup soccer final.

"I call upon each one of us to desist from anger and revenge. This will only perpetuate the pain we already feel. Let us instead now focus our energies on being part of the fight against terrorism in our country," said Orombi in a media statement on 13 July.

Gloom hit the East African nation following the blasts at Kyadondo Rugby Club and an Ethiopian Restaurant in Kabalagala on the evening of 11 July. More than 70 people died in the attack, igniting fear and outrage among Uganda's 33 million people.

The archbishop warned people against breeding unnecessary suspicion of one another, in a country where Christians, accounting for 84 percent of the people, and Muslims, who account for 12 percent, have lived peacefully side by side.

"Instead, seek for the common goal of a peaceful and just society," Orombi said. "Peaceful society is the right of every one regardless of their age, race, gender or religious inclination."

Opposition legislators in Uganda now want the government to pull out its troops from
Somalia. Uganda has provided the bulk of AMISOM peacekeepers, who give support to the country's Transitional Federal Government which battles to hold its authority

Al-Shabaab, a Somali Islamist organization that the United States lists as a "terrorist group", is reported to have taken responsibility for the attack.

"Al-Shabaab was behind the two bomb blasts in Uganda," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, the group's spokesperson, was quoted as saying by Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper on 13 July from Mogadishu, Somalia's capital.

"We thank the mujahedeen that carried out the attack," he said. "We are sending a message to Uganda and Burundi: if they do not take out their AMISOM [the African Union Mission in Somalia] troops from Somalia, blasts will continue and it will happen in Bujumbura, [capital of Burundi] too."

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