By Soita Khatondi Wepukhulu
A year after a section of Uganda’s largest garbage dump site at Kiteezi near the capital Kampala collapsed killing dozens of people and displacing hundreds, the smell of rot may have faded from the air, but for survivors and relatives of the dead and missing, the stench of injustice lingers.
The Kiteezi garbage dump, 13 kilometers from Kampala City center, was until the August 9, 2024 disaster, the only official dumpsite serving Kampala and much of the metropolitan region. Established on 29 acres in 1996 with World Bank funding and expanded with an additional six acres in 2007, it received an estimated 2,500 tonnes of waste daily under the auspices of the Kampala City Authority (KCCA).
By the time of the collapse, it had exceeded its design capacity by years. Internal KCCA memos show officials had received multiple warnings in the months leading up to the disaster, citing slope instability, blocked drainage, and the risk of fatalities.
The disaster
It began with a sound few in Kiteezi will ever forget— a deep, rumbling groan that seemed to rise from beneath the earth. Seconds later, the towering heap of tonnes of waste shifted, then lunged forward like a breaking wave, and came tumbling down.
Grace Kyandia, a waste picker who was seven months pregnant at the time, was picking plastics that morning.
“Run! Run! The rubbish is burying us!” Kyandia recalls hearing loud screams.
When she looked up, she said, she saw a waste truck being swallowed by a crack, then a whole section of rubbish just sliding.
“I jumped over a crack behind me, felt a sharp pain in my belly, but I kept running,” Kyandia told Agora, “People were falling behind me.”
The description of a male resident who rushed to the site as the disaster was unfolding is even more haunting.
“You could see people fall like mangoes off a tree, then disappear under the waves of waste,” he said, “We heard cries from under the rubbish, but within hours… they stopped.”
In minutes, the Kiteezi landfill, once a bustling hub where 300 registered waste pickers combed through garbage for plastics, metals, and other recyclables daily and other small businesses flourished, had turned into a graveyard.
Locals say the first rescue excavator reached the scene at midday, and a second excavator at around 3pm.
Before then desperate residents had used hoes, pick axes and any tool they could find to dig up people whose cries could be heard, some of whom were making frantic phone calls to those on the outside.
But the heat soon got to them, and local rescuers eventually stopped hearing from them.
By nightfall, rescue excavators stopped digging due to lack of lighting. Residents who spoke to Agora in the days following the waste slide noted their disappointment at the inadequacy in the government efforts which possibly cost the lives of their loved ones awaiting help underneath the waste.
Notably, the government deployed hundreds of heavily armed police who far outnumbered rescue workers. Reports by residents also established that the police disrupted local rescue efforts and cordoned off the area yet excavators arrived several hours later, losing precious time to save lives.
Prize Tayembwa, the Manager of Kampala East Branch for the Uganda Red Cross, told us that two days after the tragedy, only four people had been pulled out alive.
The rain had hampered rescue efforts, turning the waste into a heavy, sucking sludge that trapped rescuers up to their knees.
Officially, 35 people were killed and dozens were injured. Over 300 residents were displaced, with eleven victims still missing, their bodies believed to be buried under more than 50 feet of compacted garbage.
Some of the residents interviewed by AGORA contest these numbers, pointing out that while over 90 houses were buried, only 10% of the affected area was excavated.
Criminal charges against top KCCA officials
Nearly a year after the collapse, the search for accountability moved from internal memos to the highest political and judicial levels. The findings of the Inspector General of Government (IGG) were blunt: senior leaders at Kampala Capital City Authority had failed to act on clear warnings, and their negligence had directly contributed to the loss of life at Kiteezi.
In what State House called a “decisive response in the public interest,” President Museveni sacked three top KCCA officials: Mrs. Dorothy Kisaka, then Executive Director, Engineer David Luyimbazi, then Deputy Executive Director and Dr. Daniel Okello, then Director of Public Health.
The IGG’s report described “severe oversight and negligence” by the trio, citing their failure to implement urgent safety measures despite repeated technical warnings about the landfill’s instability.
The President also directed the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and other law enforcement agencies to pursue a criminal case, with a particular focus on criminal negligence.
In October 2024, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) filed 34 counts of manslaughter and 21 counts of causing harm through negligent acts against the officials. The charges alleged that their inaction — despite knowledge of the imminent risk — amounted to a breach of duty so grave that it constituted criminal liability. Survivors and bereaved families welcomed the move but remained skeptical about whether convictions would follow. In July 2025, the DPP dropped charges against Dr. Okello.
The criminal cases remain in progress, overshadowed by procedural delays and questions about whether the full truth will emerge in court. But the charges have already served as an acknowledgment — at least on paper — that the deaths at Kiteezi were not an “act of God,” as claimed by the Prime Minister Robina Nabbanja in the days following the tragedy, but the product of decisions, omissions, and neglect by those in power.
Danger signs ignored
Months before the collapse, waste pickers were warned by the management at the landfill of cracks developing.
“The site engineer had told us that on the side of the landfill there was a crack, we shouldn’t go there,” recalled a waste picker in an interview with Agora in October 2024, “The crack had appeared about three months ago.”
A few weeks to the disaster, vapour from the crack would even make visibility hard.
“You were unable to see the person next to you,” revealed another waste picker, “When we would leave our stuff in one place, we would find that it had shifted by the next day as the rubbish slowly slid.”
A memo of dated August 19, 2024 and marked “Internal Investigation Regarding the Kiteezi Landfill Incident” was sent from KCCA’s Director of Legal Affairs to the Executive Director.
It acknowledges, in plain terms, that the landfill was “way past its design life and long overdue for closure.” It also notes this was the second collapse of its kind — the first, in December 2015, destroyed part of the leachate collection system but claimed no lives.
The Legal Affairs memo concludes with a stark warning: “In light of risks to life, of property and the injuries to the few survivors… both civil and criminal liability might accrue against both KCCA and its staff.” It is a damning admission.
Over the last year, AGORA has conducted dozens of interviews with affected residents, waste pickers, bereaved families, government officials, rescue workers, and church leaders. We have also combed through internal government documents and environmental assessments to piece together what happened, why it happened, who was responsible, and what measures could be taken to avoid a similar disaster in future.
Today, a year after the tragedy, dozens of families still live in limbo, their homes gone and their names lost on shifting compensation lists. Promised reforms have been slow, uneven, and in some cases, dangerously reminiscent of the very practices that caused this disaster.
Amidst all this, an investigation by AGORA reveals serious concerns emerging about another Kiteezi-like disaster in the making.
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