The Kanungu Massacre: Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

Ashes at Kanungu: A Ugandan Cult’s Deadly Reckoning

On the morning of March 18, 2000, the normally quiet slopes of Kanungu District stirred with an urgency that had nothing to do with harvest or rain. Villagers gathered at the smoldering ruins of a church — brick walls blackened, corrugated roofing collapsing inward, the air still tinged with the acrid exhaustion of kerosene. Among the first to arrive were police and local officials, pressed forward by the sheer scale of rumor: something unthinkable had happened in their midst.

Inside, there was silence. Hours before, that simple building had held a congregation. Now, rescue teams counted bodies by the dozen, then by the hundred, until numbers failed and only horror remained.

The Seeds of Desperation

To truly understand what led here, you have to set the clock back a decade, to another Uganda. The late 1980s were a time of grief and flux. For years, Uganda had reeled under the weight of brutal dictatorship, civil war, and the relentless spread of HIV/AIDS. Faith — any faith that promised answers or escape — found fertile ground among the lost and the desperate.

It was in this context that two unlikely visionaries emerged: Joseph Kibweteere, once a respected Catholic catechist and local official, and Credonia Mwerinde, frequently reported as a former sex worker and beer seller, whom followers called the “programmer.” Both claimed to have received messages from the Virgin Mary. Maverick prophets in a land hungry for hope, they insisted the world’s end was not just coming, but imminent — and they had been chosen to lead a community of survivors.

They named their movement the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a title heavy with warning. They preached that the Catholic Church had lost its way, that humanity had grown corrupt, and that strict obedience to the Ten Commandments — no lies, no property, no sex, no questioning — was the only lifeline left.

Their flock swelled: farmers, teachers, orphans, people buried by misfortune and searching for favor. Some estimates put their number in the thousands, scattered across compounds in Kanungu, Rugazi, Buhunga, and Nyabugoto. Members gave up nearly everything at the urging of their leaders: homes, livestock, cash, and land, sold or surrendered in anticipation of a paradise that always seemed just around the corner.

Signs, Prophecies, and Encroaching Doom

High on the slopes above Kanungu, the new community took shape. Days slipped from fasting to prayer. Each moment, the next vision, or a murky prophecy from a dreamer who claimed to speak for the saints. The rules were strict: no working on Sunday, no sex, no frivolous talk, children silent, all property held in common. Even laughter, they said, could be a sign of transgression.

December 31, 1999, was circled in fire-red ink on their calendar. The end of days, the leaders announced, was promised by the Virgin Mary, who would gather the righteous to heaven. The world, rotted by sin, would not see the dawn of a new millennium.

But when dawn did break on January 1, 2000, it exposed confusion, embarrassment, and rising anger. The world had not ended. The sky was blue. And the faithful — now destitute, estranged from their families, their savings gone — found themselves staring at the same fields and hunger as before. Some began to demand restitution. They wanted their land back, their livestock returned, some explanation for the betrayal. Their voices, once meek in prayer, grew insistent.

Kibweteere and Mwerinde reassured them: a new date was coming. They insisted this delay was simply a test. All would be made clear at a great “final” ceremony.

Fire in the House of God

March 17, 2000, began like so many others — but you wouldn’t have known from looking that it would end in carnage. Under directives from the leadership, more than 500 adherents gathered at the main compound for a grand celebration. Some accounts from survivors — the rare few who had refused to attend or been away — tell of an almost feverish anticipation. Singing echoed through the compound. Goats and cows were slaughtered for a promised feast. Leaders delivered sermons about redemption and the impending journey to meet the Virgin in heaven.

At some point during the day, windows and doors of the chapel were boarded shut. Nails hammered into wood. Those inside, singing and swaying, may have seen this as a sign: a church sealed against evil. Witnesses later claimed that kerosene-smelling rags were passed around under the pretense of cleansing. But as the service reached its crescendo, the mood shifted.

Investigators would later reconstruct a horrifying scene: Kerosene splashed through the hall; flames rising fast and unopposed; desperate pounding against boarded exits; smoke billowing upward, thick enough to cut the air. No way out, not for anyone inside.

By midmorning on the 18th, it was already clear to authorities that this was no accident. This was murder on an unthinkable scale.

A Trail of Graves

If the immediate atrocity in Kanungu was all, it would have been more than enough. But as investigators fanned out, following whispered leads from villagers and worried relatives, the horror only grew.

In the following week, four more mass graves were uncovered at the cult’s various compounds. Some bodies showed unmistakable signs of violence: knife wounds, strangulation, poisoning. In Rugazi, the bodies of 153 followers were found in a pit beneath a kitchen floor. At Buhunga, 155 more. At Nyabugoto, more again. Many of the victims were children.

By the end of March, the official death toll had crossed 900, with some estimates nearing or exceeding a thousand — almost the entirety of the movement’s known membership. Grief was everywhere: in frightened villages, in families awaiting word, even among seasoned investigators who admitted never seeing anything like it, not since the shadow of Jonestown in the 1970s.

Who Survived, and Where Were the Leaders?

In the immediate confusion, rumors bloomed: perhaps this was a mass suicide, a last, desperate act of faith? Or perhaps something more sinister — a planned obliteration, meant to cover up fraud and avoid the angry demands of the cheated?

Quickly, a consensus began to form, supported by growing evidence: This was murder, executed with chilling calculation. Survivors who had quit the group or were away at the time recalled threats from leaders, who feared retribution from members denied their promised apocalypse. Police investigations solidified the view that the movement’s founders had orchestrated the deaths, not out of devotion, but out of fear — and perhaps greed.

The main architects — Kibweteere, Mwerinde, and others — were nowhere to be found. Arrest warrants were issued. Their faces flashed across news bulletins from Kampala to London. Yet, despite years of sporadic leads and rumors, none have ever been conclusively found or brought to justice. Their disappearance remains an open wound for families who lost sons and daughters, and for a country haunted by the scope of the crime.

Aftermath: A Scorched Trust

The Kanungu Massacre left more than charred ruins and unmarked graves. The economic consequences rippled through southwestern Uganda: Hundreds of families lost homes, land, and livelihoods; livestock was left to starve or wander. Distrust of religious leaders, especially anyone claiming visions or miraculous insight, ran deeper than before.

For the survivors — and for the families of those who perished — trauma settled like volcanic ash. Aid efforts brought counseling and practical assistance to Kanungu and neighboring villages, but no easy peace was possible. The story of the cult became a cautionary tale, not just for Uganda, but far beyond.

In Kampala, regulators and officials came under harsh scrutiny. How had such a large group operated so openly — holding processions, buying land, publishing pamphlets — without intervention? In the months that followed, the government reviewed laws on faith groups, tightening oversight and registration protocols. New rules demanded greater transparency, especially from so-called “non-traditional” or “prophetic” movements.

Memory—And Lessons Not Yet Learned

Today, more than two decades later, the Kanungu Massacre echoes as a warning: a reminder of how hope can become a weapon, and how trust, when placed in the wrong hands, can have lethal consequences. Its scale sits among the bleakest records of mass murder and cult violence — exceeded only by a handful of events like Jonestown, or the horror of the Rwandan genocide.

Journalists and investigators occasionally return to the subject, tracing trails gone cold, hoping for justice or revelation. Yet the storefronts are empty. The fields, once filled with hymn and prayer, grow quietly over the last scars. Most agree now that the fire in Kanungu was not a moment of religious ecstasy or even shared despair — but a tragedy planned, executed, and then abandoned by those trusted most.

What is left is not an answer, but a question, passed from one generation to the next: How far would you follow someone who promised you paradise? And, if you gave everything, who would stand with you when the dawn failed to come?