It’s been two and half years of pain and despair for the families of the Muslim Sheikhs who were arrested in 2015 and charged with the murder of the slain Muslim Clerics. Some of the wives of the convicted spoke out on what it had been like living without the bread winners. “Life totally changed, especially in feeding. There are things that we cannot afford as of now but as you know, the Almighty Allah is the Provider, He has been there for us, He has indeed provided for us in this trying moment. But generally life is not the same, so many things changed including in clothing and dressing but we just pray to the Almighty Allah and we strongly believe and have hope in Him.” “The life that I personally have experienced, just like being with co-wives, we can never live a good life without our beloved husband, sometimes children delay to report to school, even the food you eat can’t be enjoyed because you all miss the head of the family among other issues.”

BukenyaAkram a son and a nephew to two of the convicts has since taken over his father and uncle’s responsibility of taking care of the families. “We are not in good conditions but I thank Allah that we have managed to look after our families. But we are strong in the name of Allah, we know at the end of the day these people will be out.” He was not any different from Mustafa Kalujja who painfully said their families had literally survived on handouts from Muslim leaders and well-wishers.

“The two have been retained, although the other two have been released, there is no happiness as such because we still have our brother convicted.” But it was not just the families that had suffered since many of those arrested were also in charge of projects in the Muslim community and a number of these projects had stalled. “We had projects as UMA house, those came to a standstill and this caused many failures because our leaders responsible are not available anymore.”