Ugandan man goes on trial over kindergarten stabbings

A Ugandan man accused of stabbing four young children to death at a kindergarten in an attack that horrified the country pleaded not guilty to murder, as his trial began on Monday.

Christopher Okello Onyum, who was arrested as he tried to flee the scene of the crime on April 2, denied the four counts of murder.

Prosecutors said at an earlier hearing that Onyum had confessed to killing the four children, who were aged from 15 months to two and a half years, believing that the "human sacrifice" would help him become rich.

The court— sitting in specially erected tents to accommodate spectators — heard chilling testimony from a staff member at the Ggaba Early Childhood Development Centre.

"At first I thought he was beating a child, when I asked him why he was beating our children, before he responded I saw Kaisha (one of the victims) against a wall in the pool of blood," she said.

"He got up and he had a knife in his hand, he was so quick that he immediately grabbed another child. I got one of the bicycles the children used, I threw it at him. 

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"When I threw the bicycle at him he left the child and started running after me. I ran but I later fell down. When I got up I found out he had cut the second child."

The victims' parents also gave evidence, describing their last morning with their children before taking them to kindergarten, the phone call informing them of the attack, and the discovery of the bodies at the hospital. 

One of them, Stella Apolot, mother of slain Gideon Eteku, fainted immediately after testifying.

The hearing was adjourned until Wednesday.