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Ugandan police registered a murder case after the headless body of Sgt. Maj. Robert Kabera was found on October 17, 2026, in Luwala village within Mpigi district’s Kammengo sub-county. National police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke said the remains, identified by relatives including the victim’s brother, were moved to Mulago City Mortuary while searches continued for the severed head. Rusoke added that investigators were reviewing all details of Kabera’s life and background, though no motive had been established and no arrests made as of Monday.[[1]](https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/a-rwandan-dissident-has-been-found-beheaded-in-neighbouring-uganda/)
Kabera, a 50-year-old former Rwanda Defence Forces soldier and instructor, fled to Uganda in November 2020 after the Rwandan military announced probes into allegations of unlawful sexual contact with a family member. Once in exile he launched the YouTube channel Major Robert TV, which attracted more than 140,000 followers with over 800 videos that some Rwandans viewed as damaging to their government’s reputation, according to Ugandan press accounts. He had told local reporters at the time that he left Rwanda to escape persecution tied partly to his connections with the family of Fred Rwigema, a founding figure in the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
A Human Rights Watch report from 2023 documented more than a dozen cases of killings, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and physical attacks on Rwandan dissidents living in countries including Uganda, often involving proxies or direct pressure from Kigali. The rights group found that Rwandan authorities also targeted relatives back home through arbitrary arrests and harassment to deter criticism from abroad. Subsequent Human Rights Watch updates in 2026 noted that the ruling party continues to pursue perceived threats with arbitrary detentions and uninvestigated suspicious deaths inside the country.[[2]](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/rwandas-repression-across-borders)
UNHCR data from August 2026 places the Rwandan refugee population in Uganda at roughly 23,700, part of a national total exceeding 1.9 million refugees and asylum seekers mainly from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. The latest killing has prompted fresh anxiety among Rwandan exiles in Uganda, several local outlets reported. Superintendent of Police Lydia Tumushabe told The Associated Press that Kabera’s prior military service had been noted by detectives examining the case.[[3]](https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/123932)
Rwandan authorities had issued no public statement on Kabera’s death by October 19, 2026, according to wire service dispatches. The case bears similarities to the 2010 killing of Rwandan opposition politician Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, whose body was discovered with his head almost completely severed, as reported at the time by BBC News. Police have emphasized that the investigation remains active and encompasses any circumstances that could link to the victim’s public criticism of President Paul Kagame.
President Kagame has led Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide and is widely credited with driving post-conflict reconstruction and economic growth. Yet rights organizations have repeatedly flagged restrictions on political space, independent media and opposition voices both domestically and among the diaspora. Human Rights Watch has observed that multiple senior military figures have defected into exile citing fears for their personal safety amid these patterns.
