Lango sub-region is grappling with high cases of crime threatening the security of residents, with authorities linking most incidents to alcoholism, drug abuse and violence at night discos.
Lango sub-region consists of nine districts and a city: Alebtong, Amolatar, Apac, Dokolo, Kole, Kwania, Lira, Otuke, Oyam Districts and Lira City. The trend is spreading across all of them.
The Police Annual Crime Report of 2025 puts Lango sub-region, or North Kyoga Policing Region, at number 4 among the top 10 policing regions with the highest crime rates out of 32 regions in Uganda. North Kyoga registered 12,728 criminal cases reported to police in 2025.
The trend has continued into 2026, with cases of murder by mob action, murder, theft, assault, rape and defilement among the common cases being registered. Authorities say most of these crimes are committed either under the influence of alcohol or during night discos, which have become common at trading centres.
The most recent cases include a fight over girls between students of Apac Seed Secondary School and the community at a disco on April 3, 2026, Easter Sunday, at Agweng Trading Centre in Apac Subcounty, which left seven students injured.
On May 3, 2026, Kenneth Odon, 16, a student of Kangai Secondary School in Dokolo District, was stabbed to death at a disco in Arwotcek Parish, Arwotcek Subcounty, Amolatar District during a fight over girls.
In Lira City, a 20-year-old woman was gang raped on May 2, 2026 by a group of over ten men who were already intoxicated with alcohol. The victim, a resident of Amuca, was returning from a hangout at Grand Paradise Hotel in Amuca along the Lira-Kamdini Highway.
In April, police in Lira City East Division arrested 100 suspected criminals at several drinking joints on the outskirts of the city.
The high influx of illicit alcohol in the local market has made crude alcohol accessible to low-income earners including youth, resulting in abuse and high consumption. Authorities say this is increasing school dropout, family breakups and poverty.
Bonny Okello Alele, the Assistant Resident City Commissioner for Lira City, said alcoholism is becoming a security threat. ‘Some of you would see security as thugs, Malaya mentioned them but alcoholism is now one of the big threats in our city. This alcohol of Shs 1000 per bottle is a danger to this society already,’ he said.
Okello added that some dangerous alcohols are being sold in open markets and the youth are the highest consumers. ‘Some of us do day operations, we arrested about 27 around VH Public School by 9am they were drunk and dead. You just pick them like the grasshoppers,’ he said.
Alex Ogota, the LC3 chairperson of Ibuje Subcounty in Apac District, said thieves are taking advantage of sound pollution from night discos to steal. ‘We have bars at the trading centres where they play loud music at night. The thieves stay here and deep in the night they go to people’s homes where they steal cattle, chickens, goats and break into the houses,’ he said.
Pastor Thomas Opio Okene, the senior pastor at Amuli Baptist Church in Kwania District, asked local authorities to regulate night discos and alcoholism since it is compromising security.
‘The government has under looked these issues of alcoholism and night disco for a very long time but it’s now costing us. Many lives have lost, properties destroyed, families broken because of these issues. People are no longer drinking responsibly. More sensitization is needed so that this vice is reduced,’ he said.
However, North Kyoga Region Police Spokesperson Patrick Jimmy Okema said the cases are isolated and do not represent a general security threat.
‘Those are isolated cases that we cannot term it as a very big issue in terms of security but all the things that the different stakeholders should look into, the religious leaders, the media, the CSOs should come in and join hands to deal with such,’ he said.