The morning skies over Kampala were dreary. Then suddenly the rains fell, lightly. In many cultures, such sprinkling from the high heavens preceding a notable event, counts as blessings. This was debatable yesterday. For on the city’s eastern Mbuya Hill, grief floated and consumed hearts – of the mighty and ordinary citizens alike. Even strangers.
The knoll is the spiritual home in Uganda of the Comboni Missionaries, whose international charge is to minister to the abandoned and poorest of the world. Yesterday, the priests faced a congregation of different stripe: A-listers in Uganda government, politics, civil service and corporates assembled for a requiem mass for a teenager.
Present was the re-elected Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa, Head of Public Service Lucy Nakyobe, Bank of Uganda Governor Michael Atingi-Ego and permanent secretaries Vincent Bagiire and Dr Ramathan Ggoobi of Foreign Affairs and Finance ministries, respectively.
From the Justice, Law and Order (JLOS) filed in the Director of Public Prosecutions Lino Anguzu, Principal Judge Jane Abodo, the Deputy Inspector General of Police James Ochaya, his Prisons counterpart Samuel Akena, State House Investor Protection Unit Head Col Edith Nakalema, and Police’s Deputy Director for Criminal Investigations Beata Chelimo.
In death, a youngster had also summoned military generals, both retired and active-duty, including the Deputy Chief of Defence Forces, Lt Gen Samuel Okiding, Intelligence top brass, media executives, diplomats and a battery of what Kahinda Otafire safely called ‘ministers in transit’.
Timothy Muganzi Magambo — son of CID Director Tom Magambo Rwabudongo and Carol Nalwanga Magambo, a senior Ugandan diplomat — was only 18-years-old when his regular swimming adventure with peers turned tragic in New York on May 16, 2026.
‘This particular time, I think he (Timothy) developed a problem in the middle of the water. And his friends started looking for him. [When they found him] after 7 minutes in the water, most of the organs were gone [and] the heart [beat] was faint,’ AIGP Magambo told mourners at Our Lady of Africa Church in Mbuya, relaying witnesses’ accounts.
Frantic efforts to save the University of Albany first-year student, which was coordinated by Amb Adonia Ayebare, Uganda’s permanent representative to the United Nations (UN), and relatives and volunteers, were futile despite his swift transfer to Stony Brook Hospital, where Timothy was pronounced dead.
‘…there are simply no words strong enough to comfort you after facing such an unimaginable loss,’ Amb Ayebare wrote in a tribute. ‘Tom and Carol, take heart. It is not the number of years [that] we spend on this earth that matters, but the legacy we leave.’