Awwal 25, 1432 / April 29, 2011, SPA -- At least two people were killed on Friday in the Ugandan capital as police fired live bullets and teargas to try to quell protests across the city over the arrest of an opposition leader, according to Reuters. Red Cross official Richard Nataka told reporters more than 100 injured had been taken to five centres, including 78 at the Mulago Hospital of whom 10 had gunshot wounds. He said one person had died and a pickup truck brought in a second body shortly afterwards. Red Cross vehicles were arriving at the Mulago Hospital every few minutes with more casualties. Military police fired live rounds, rubber bullets and teargas at numerous burning barricades blocking the main road out of Kampala to the international airport in Entebbe and sprayed adjacent residential areas with bullets. Shell casings littered the highway, teargas hung in the air and security forces beat local residents. Reuters witnesses said they had seen burning barricades in at least seven areas of Kampala and there were reports of rioting in other districts. A Reuters witness saw one victim lying in a pool of blood who appeared to have been shot in the head at a local market. While five protests against high food and fuel prices this month have not attracted a huge following, the brutal arrest of opposition leader Kizza Besigye for a fourth time on Thursday sparked the eruption of violence a day later. Television footage showed Besigye being beaten and drenched repeatedly with pepper-spray before he was thrown into a police pickup truck. He was later released on bail for medical treatment. His lawyer said he could not see. "Kampala will be like this every day until Besigye is safe," shouted one young man has he ran from military police firing live rounds into the air in Nakasero market. NO TOLERANCE President Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986, blames drought for high food costs and soaring oil prices for surging local fuel costs, and has warned Besigye that his protests will not be tolerated. Besigye lost a presidential election to Museveni in February for a third time and has vowed to continue campaigning despite repeated detentions during protests that had killed at least five people before Friday. Uganda's interior minister was scheduled to hold a news conference about the protests later on Friday. Uganda's statistics bureau released inflation figures for April on Friday that showed the headline rate had leapt to 14.1 percent from 11.1 percent, with food prices up by nearly a third over the past year. Uganda's opposition has also termed the government's decision to spend $720.6 million on Russian fighter jets as a misuse of meagre resources. In Besigye's home town of Rukungiri, a heavy deployment of security forces sent youths trying to erect barricades fleeing and the streets emptied, residents said. "There's immense anger in all Rukungiri because they can't believe security could treat Besigye like that," said Collins Nyangaro, a Rukungiri resident. The Red Cross said two people had also been injured in a town on Uganda's eastern border with Kenya. Shops and businesses remained shuttered in many parts of Kampala and foreign embassies urged residents to stay indoors.
