SOROTI – Government has been dragged to court over alleged poisonous food that was supplied by the World Food Program and Amudat District Local Government.
Mr. Isaac Kolimuk and his wife Grace Chepnyorio, in their court documents before the High Court in Soroti, aver that in March 2019, they were supplied with super cereal food which they ate and become ill.
The couple says that the super cereal food/flour was supplied by the World Food Program to people in Amudat and Alakas.
The couple that sued the government alongside with Center for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT) a non-profit organization that fights for food and nutritional rights state that many people after eating the food become seriously sick with symptoms of madness and fever and later admitted in Alakas Health Center 11 and later transferred to Amudat Hospital.
The respondents, in this case, are Amudat District Local Government and the Attorney General.
They contend that those said patients were later diagnosed with food poisoning and after taking samples of a super cereal food that had been supplied to the communities from the World Food Program stores it was established that the said cereal had toxins and was not fit for human consumption.
“I and my family members had spent two days without food as we have no access to food because of the dry land in our community and when we were supplied with the food, I immediately prepared some for the children and my husband,” Ms. Chenyorio narrates.
The mother of five contends that she prepared porridge which she took before breastfeeding her youngest baby thereafter she served her husband shortly she started feeling dizzy.
The couple which resides at Kadawa village in Amudat district says after eating the cereal with their 5 children on March 29, 2019, they started shouting on top of their voices and walking while knocking walls.
That they were later helped by neighbours to check in a Health centre from where the entire family was diagnosed with symptoms of food poisoning as a result of the contaminated cereal.
The two through their lawyers of Dalumba advocates and Kwesigabo Walubiri are now seeking a declaration that the absence of national Food Reserves by Government is a violation of communities’ right to access adequate and safe nutritious foods.
Court has fixed to hear this application on July 29, 2019.
