30 arrested in Uganda

Thirty people were arrested in Kampala on Saturday in an anti-tobacco operation conducted by the Uganda National Health Consumers Organization [UNHCO] under the Ministry of Health and the police, according to a story in The Daily Monitor.

The operation was said to have centered on four city bars and to have been carried out from the Kira Road police station.

“We have gone to four places and arrested 30 people and have also impounded the shisha pots in all these,” said the station’s divisional commander, Philbert Waibi.

“We are committed to working together with the Ministry of Health and the Uganda National Health Consumers Organization to see to it that the Tobacco Control Act [2015] is implemented.”

Waibi said that all those arrested would be held as suspects before their appearances in court.

Mabel Kukunda, an advocate of the UNHCO, said Uganda lost about 13,000 people annually to tobacco-related diseases.