By Denis Omony-A man in Nwoya district has been arrested for allegedly killing his one-year old stepson after accusing his wife of failing to bear a child for him.
Opiyo Morris, a 23-year old resident of Latek-odong village, Lungulu Sub County, in Nwoya district allegedly assaulted the baby identified as Ogenrwot Joshua at around 8:00am on December 26th, 2022.
The baby’s mother, Brenda Ayot who had reportedly gone to the garden at the time returned at 10:30 to find him on the floor unconscious.
According to the child’s uncle, Okello Justin Opok, Ayot took the deceased for burial at his father’s home and informed them that the baby had died after an illness.
Opok adds that Ayot called her ex-husband’s family on Tuesday to inform them about the death of the child at the health facility.
“She claimed to have rushed the child to a nearby health facility in the village and then later transferred him to St. Mary’s Lacor Hospital branch in Amuru district where the boy was pronounced dead on arrival,” Opok said.
He said the family however suspected foul play upon receiving his body and seeing that his neck was not in place and quickly reported the matter to police.
Opiyo, the suspect was arrested and detained at Nwoya Central Police Station while the deceased child was taken to Anaka General Hospital for a postmortem, according to a police source.
“Upon interrogation, Opiyo admitted that he threw the deceased on the floor which could have resulted in his death,” Opok said.
He explained that Opiyo was for long unhappy that his wife who has suffered two miscarriages during their five months stay together, had failed to bear him a child.
“Opiyo and Ayot started living together in July 2022 after Ayot separated from my brother who lives in Panokrac village in the same sub county,” Opok said.
He said that the suspect even went ahead to order his wife to wean the deceased baby off breast milk at just seven months to enable her conceive but that she miscarried twice.
“The last miscarriage was sometime this month (December) but the suspect believed that it was an abortion and was not happy that he was wasting his resources on taking care of Ayot’s three children,” he said.
