UPDF or Bomb Blast? Mystery Deepens Around Martyrs Shrine Explosion

KAMPALA — Uganda’s Martyrs Day nearly turned tragic after two suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up in Munyonyo Tuesday morning but it’s the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) and its Acting Spokesperson, Col Chris Magezi, now in the hot seat.

By 9:00 a.m., disturbing images of what appeared to be the two suspects moments before detonation were already making rounds on social media. Then, at exactly 9:38 a.m., Col Magezi took to X (formerly Twitter), boasting that UPDF’s elite counter-terrorism unit had “intercepted and neutralized two armed terrorists.”

The statement was swift, confident and as it turns out, deeply controversial.

Eyewitnesses painted a drastically different picture. No gunfire. No pursuit. Just two people on a motorcycle, slowly tailing a taxi, before exploding just 100 metres from the Munyonyo Martyrs Shrine.

One X user didn’t hold back: “How did UPDF kill the suspects when my security guard saw two people explode on their own? No one was chasing them.”

Facing mounting pressure, Col Magezi doubled down at a 3:00 p.m. press conference in Mbuya but only managed to ignite further confusion.

“Our team fired at them,” he said, claiming the woman detonated after being confronted. Yet CCTV footage from local residents, now widely shared online, tells another story: no UPDF presence, no shots fired just a tragic, fiery end.

And here’s where things really stop making sense, within an hour of the explosion, UPDF had already released what they claimed was a photo of the female suicide bomber after she had detonated herself.

Critics are demanding answers.

“If, as Magezi claims, UPDF opened fire, then where’s the footage showing that confrontation?” Why does the widely circulated CCTV only show the suspects on a motorcycle moments before detonation, with no soldier in sight?” Says one security analyst In Kampala who preferred anonymity .

Further more, social media isn’t buying the “neutralization” narrative. One post summed it up bluntly: “The terrorists killed themselves. But the way UPDF is chasing credit…I’ve given up.”

Another user challenged the military head-on: “Much as I like the UPDF, on this one you are wrong. Something doesn’t add up. The camera focuses only on the boda guy. So who actually killed them  UPDF or the bomb blast?”

Col Magezi’s press briefing was meant to reassure the public. Instead, it’s raised even more questions about transparency, accuracy and whether the UPDF is trying to rewrite the ending of an event that unfolded in plain view.

Until the military releases unedited footage or credible evidence to back it claims, critics say the narrative remains shaky at best  and misleading at worst.