Fresh details in the organ trade probe indicate that victims are subjected to compatibility tests before they are flown out of the country, apparently as maids before their organs are harvested.

Sources privy to the probe have exclusively revealed that among the tests carried out are those that ascertain the victims’ blood groups, HIV and Hepatitis B status, among others.

The Ugandan accomplices reportedly take note of the victims’ feeding habits, on top of putting them on a special diet, and monitoring them for weeks before their travel.

According to sources, this is done after details of the potential organ recipients are sent to local labour exporting organisations, which are tasked with finding matching organ donors.

“The victims are recruited as maids, but are not told that they will be organ donors,” said the source. 

Following these findings, Police is keen on finding out the type of tests that local labour export organisations implicated in organ trade have been carrying out on Ugandans, and against what background.

On Tuesday, some medics (names withheld), allegedly with direct knowledge on how tests are carried out, reportedly volunteered information to detectives attached to the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) and pleaded for Police protection.

The doctors said: “Some migrant workers leave Uganda without the knowledge of certified labour firms via porous borders across the country. They then board planes from neighbouring countries.”

The source noted: “As we speak today, there are about 80,000 Ugandans in Oman, who travelled there under unclear circumstances.”

Impeccable sources told New Vision that the account of medics followed the ordeal of Judith Nakintu, a 38-year-old single mother, whose right kidney was allegedly extracted and sold to a wealthy recipient while working in Saudi Arabia.

Nakintu flew to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on December 12, 2019.

Preliminary investigations indicate that Nakintu is among several Ugandans who sought greener pastures in Saudi Arabia, courtesy of externalisation of labour via Nile Treasure Gate Company, a labour export firm. 

However, authorities from the firm have since denied responsibility, arguing that Nakintu was involved in an accident and only damaged her spleen.  

Police’s Criminal Investigations Directorate’s (CID) sexual and gender-based violence department, headed by Senior Superintendent of Police Rose Nalubega, is at the helm of the investigations.

“The victim (Nakintu) was duped to go for a COVID-19 test, but instead woke up with paralysed legs. A medical scan indicates that her right kidney was extracted and sold,” a source with links to CID intelligence said.

Background

The disturbing revelations of the illicit organ trade have linked at least four Ugandan doctors attached to two top hospitals to a trafficking syndicate that is also allegedly behind the removal of kidneys from three children.

The doctors allegedly took part in an international scam that saw poor victims of externalisation of labour get paid $40,000 (sh140.6m) for their kidneys to be transplanted to wealthy recipients across the globe, according to Police.

The victims claim not to have received the money.

According to the Police, the doctors are accused of allegedly falsifying medical reports of victims whose organs (kidneys) have been extracted with the aid of firms behind the externalisation of labour, among others.

“The (doctors) medical reports indicate that their victims’ organs are intact, whereas not,” a source said.

The examinations are done upon the return of some of the victims.

Without revealing the doctors’ identities for fear of jeopardising the probe, a source said: “The hospitals are aware of the probe that implicates their doctors and have requested Police to formally write to them.”