Four toddlers killed in daycare stabbing in Kampala, Uganda.
NEWS:
Four toddlers were killed in a stabbing attack at a daycare center in Kampala, Uganda, on April 2, in a case that quickly escalated from a local crime scene to a high-profile murder prosecution. The video tied to the case directly records the attack and the immediate chaos around the daycare, so the killings are not treated here as a disputed claim or an unverified allegation. The deaths themselves are also confirmed by Uganda’s police.
According to the Uganda Police Force, officers in Ggaba responded at about 00:11:00 a.m. to a distress call reporting that a man was attacking children at the Ggaba Early Childhood Development Program, a daycare facility in Ggaba Parish, Makindye Division, Kampala City. Police said the suspect was arrested at the scene and identified him as 39-year-old Okello Christopher Onyum. In the same official statement, police confirmed that four minors were killed and said all of them were pupils at the daycare.
The victims were identified by police as three boys and one girl, all approximately two or three years old. That official detail matters because early international reports were brief and focused mainly on the death toll and the suspect’s arrest. The police statement established the most important confirmed baseline of the case: where it happened, when police were called, who was arrested, and how many children were killed.
Public reporting immediately after the attack described it as a stabbing at a nursery or daycare center. A Reuters dispatch on April 2 confirmed that four pupils had been killed in a school stabbing in Kampala and that a suspect was in custody. That initial reporting did not settle motive or explain the full sequence inside the school, but it aligned with the police confirmation that the attack had happened and that the suspect had already been detained.
Later reporting added more detail attributed to police. According to police comments cited after the attack, the suspect had previously approached the daycare while seeking admission for a child and returned on April 2. He was said to have paid an admission fee before launching the attack. Those details were not part of the first brief police release reviewed here, so they should be understood as police-attributed background that emerged later, not as a fact independently established by the video alone.
The same later reporting also said there were 10 other children inside the daycare who were returned to their parents after the attack. Another concrete point repeated across later coverage was the reaction outside the scene. A crowd reportedly tried to attack the suspect after the killings, and police had to intervene and remove him from the area. That detail does not change the core crime, but it helps explain why the arrest was immediate and why the case drew such intense local outrage.
The second pass of reporting produced two meaningful developments. First, Uganda Police said on April 7 that Okello Christopher Onyum was being processed and that his file would be submitted to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for perusal and advice. That official update showed that the case had moved beyond the initial arrest stage and into the formal prosecution pipeline. It also indicated that police were still examining additional allegations connected to the suspect.
The second major development came on April 13, when the case reached court. Reporting from that hearing said the trial began in a tent set up near the crime scene as part of Uganda’s new mobile court approach. At that appearance, Onyum pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder. The location and format of the hearing drew unusual public attention because it was held close to the neighborhood where the children were killed and because mobile court sessions in such a serious criminal case were presented as a way to bring justice closer to the affected community.
That fast public handling of the case also produced controversy of its own. Later reporting said critics questioned whether such an unusually visible court setting risked turning a murder trial into a public spectacle. Even so, the procedural fact is clear: by less than two weeks after the attack, the suspect had moved from arrest to active trial proceedings.
There are still important limits on what can be stated as settled fact. Police confirmed the deaths, the suspect’s arrest, the identities and approximate ages of the four children, and the later processing of the case. Reporting from the April 13 hearing confirmed that the accused pleaded not guilty. But no publicly reviewed source used here established a proven motive. Some of the most detailed narrative elements about how the suspect entered, what he said before the attack, and why he may have targeted the daycare remain based on police-attributed reporting or court-stage allegations rather than on a final judicial finding.
For that reason, the most accurate framing is also the most direct one. Four toddlers were killed inside a daycare center in Kampala. Police arrested a 39-year-old suspect at the scene on April 2. Police later said the file was being prepared for prosecutors. On April 13, the accused appeared in court, pleaded not guilty, and the case moved into formal trial proceedings. If convicted, later reporting said he could face the death penalty under Ugandan law.
News story written by Tifa Winters.
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