history 25 March 2026 Daily Monitor (Uganda)
The Mysterious Disappearance of Pioneer Engineer Francis Xavier Ruhesi
Francis Xavier Ruhesi, a trailblazing Ugandan civil engineer who shaped the nation's post-independence infrastructure, was abducted by military personnel in 1972 and never seen again. Over 50 years later, his family continues to seek closure amid unresolved trauma from the Amin era. Source: https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/special-reports/ruhesi-the-engineer-who-vanished-without-a-trace-5403510
Francis Xavier Ruhesi, born in 1930 in Isingiro, emerged as one of Uganda’s first indigenous chartered civil engineers. Son of a King’s African Rifles veteran, he excelled academically, securing scholarships from St Aloysius Nyamitanga to St Leo’s College Kyegobe and Uganda Technical Institute Nakawa. In 1957, the Ankole Kingdom funded his studies at Portsmouth College of Technology in England.
Returning in 1963 as a qualified member of prestigious engineering institutions, Ruhesi served as regional engineer for Ankole and Kigezi, then rose to senior executive engineer. He oversaw roads, bridges, airstrips, schools, water systems, and urban projects. By 1967, he was deputy commissioner of Water Development in Entebbe, and in 1970, town engineer in Jinja.
On September 25, 1972, his promising career ended abruptly. Military personnel abducted him from his Jinja office, along with colleague Henry Kasigwa, the town treasurer. They were last spotted in a military vehicle leaving town.
Ruhesi’s wife, Hildegarde, tirelessly searched detention centers, prisons, and barracks. A harrowing visit to Nile Mansions nearly cost her life, but a sympathetic soldier helped her escape. Traumatized, she later checked bodies in Namanve Forest with no success.
The family lost their Kakoba home in Mbarara to the Uganda Army’s Simba Battalion until 1979. Hildegarde supported her six children through baking and farming amid regime suspicion. In the fearful 1970s Mbarara, widows of the disappeared formed a supportive network.
In 2004, a tip from a Jinja cemetery investigation revealed Ruhesi and Kasigwa were buried as unknowns in a mass grave. Degraded bones prevented DNA confirmation, leaving no remains or closure.
Ruhesi’s children—Declan, Richard, Brig Gen James, Rose, Emmanuel, and Dr Hilda—built successful lives. The family calls for a National Registry of the Disappeared and a Day of Remembrance to honor independence pioneers.
Source: Daily Monitor (Uganda)