A man who Friday turned up to join the UPDF at Arua Police ground collapsed and died during a road run exercise.
According to Maj Ceaser Olwenyi, the 4th Division Public Information Officer, Michael Saidia from Ofaka in Madi Okollo District, collapsed and died after a group of candidates had been flagged off for a road run.
“The road run was one of the examinations for recruitment but we told the candidates that the exercise was not a competition and they should not run to die,” he said as quoted by the Daily Monitor.
“We gave clear instructions about that and we flagged off the candidates for a two and half kilometre run but the deceased who was found epileptic collapsed and died some minutes later.”
He said: “After the collapsing, our doctors tried to rescue him by putting him on a drip. We thought he was going to be okay within no minute as we were looking for ways of getting an ambulance. Within a short period, he passed on which is very unfortunate.”
UPDF kick started its 10-day country wide recruitment exercise Friday. The exercise is happening at Kololo, Kotido, Lyantonde, Arua and Hoima. The Kololo Airstrip center is recruiting candidates from Kampala.
According to Lt. Col Henry Obbo, the spokesperson of the Lands Forces, UPDF is scheduled to recruit 4,000 people in the country wide exercise which will end on January 5th, 2020. Those seeking to be recruited are required to be Ugandans aged between 18 and 25 years (regular recruits), while professional recruits are required to be between 18 and 30 years.
Regular recruits are required to have Senior Four and Senior Six Certificates with a bias in science subjects while professionals possess diplomas and degrees in chemistry, software engineering, medicine, mechanical engineering and other courses.
