The spouse of Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine has given a detailed account of a late-night raid on her home, saying armed men stormed the residence and assaulted her while demanding to know her husband’s whereabouts.
Speaking to journalists from a hospital bed on Saturday, Barbara Kyagulanyi, widely known as Barbie, said she stood her ground when dozens of men dressed in military uniforms forced their way into the family home on Friday night. She told reporters she repeatedly said she did not know where her husband was and refused to comply when the intruders ordered her to unlock her mobile phone.
According to Kyagulanyi, the men mocked and verbally abused her, questioning her decision to marry Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, better known as Bobi Wine, the leading opposition candidate among seven challengers who faced President Yoweri Museveni in last week’s presidential election.
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Wine has remained out of public view since Museveni was declared the winner of the January 15 polls with 71.6 percent of the vote, based on official figures. Wine’s National Unity Platform, or NUP, was credited with 24.7 percent, a result he has dismissed as fabricated. He has since called for peaceful protests and said he fears for his life while staying at an undisclosed location.
Security has been tight around Wine’s residence for days. On the night of the incident, Kyagulanyi said she was alone in the house except for a guard at the gate, as the couple’s children were away, when the armed men broke in.
She managed to record the intruders on her phone, and the footage, later shared on X, sparked widespread shock across the country. Recounting the moment, Kyagulanyi said that when she saw the “swarm of men,” she phoned her brother-in-law and told him, “This is the end.”
She told reporters that two of the men restrained her while others searched the house. One demanded access to her phone, and when she refused, he lifted her off the floor. She said she kicked him in response, prompting another man to grab her and tear her pajama top, ripping off the buttons.
As the confrontation occurred, Kyagulanyi said some of the intruders “looked away,” while others “were unbothered.”
She added that the assault continued moments later when a gunman dragged her by the hair and slammed her head against a pillar. Four men then pinned her down by sitting on her, she said, before she lost consciousness. She was taken to the hospital around 1 a.m.
At Nsambya Hospital in Kampala, doctors treated her for bruises and anxiety on Saturday.
Kyagulanyi said she believes the operation was ordered by Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the army chief since 2024 and the president’s son, citing what she described as repeated threats against her husband on the social media platform X.
Military spokesman Col. Chris Magezi did not respond to requests for comment, the AP reported.
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Wine’s lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, issued a statement on Friday urging the international community “to demand immediate, verifiable guarantees” for Wine’s safety. He pointed to what he called the army chief’s “reckless” threats, noting that police have not accused Wine of committing any crime.
Kainerugaba has frequently posted inflammatory messages on X and has recently targeted Wine, calling him a “baboon” and a “terrorist,” posts he often deletes later. Earlier this week, he stated that more than 2,000 of Wine’s supporters had been detained since the election and claimed he was acting with powers reserved for a commander-in-chief, an authority granted to the president under Ugandan law.
David Lewis Rubongoya, the secretary general of NUP, said on Saturday that the party “is under attack,” describing the situation as a “new phase of persecution.”
“Our leader is in hiding,” Rubongoya said. “Several other party leaders are either missing or under arrest.”
The election period was marked by a nationwide internet shutdown that lasted several days, along with failures of biometric voter identification machines that delayed voting in parts of the country, including Kampala. Wine has also alleged that ballot boxes were stuffed in areas considered strongholds of Museveni.
Museveni, a long-standing U.S. ally on regional security matters, has accused opposition groups of trying to incite violence during the vote.
In Washington, Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement on Friday that the Trump administration should “reassess the U.S. security relationship with Uganda, beginning with a review of whether sanctions are warranted under existing authorities against specific actors,” naming Kainerugaba among them.
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has also weighed in, urging “restraint by all actors and respect for the rule of law and Uganda’s international human rights obligations.”
Ugandan security forces maintained a heavy presence throughout the campaign period. Wine has said he was routinely followed, while his supporters were harassed and dispersed with tear gas. For much of the campaign, he appeared in public wearing a flak jacket and helmet for protection.
Museveni, 81, is set to begin a seventh term in office, extending his rule toward five decades. Supporters credit him with delivering relative stability that has turned Uganda into a refuge for hundreds of thousands fleeing conflict elsewhere in the region.
READ ALSO: Museveni secures seventh term as Bobi Wine rejects Uganda’s disputed election result
