Original subtitles

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

Uganda was home.

It was our country. It was...

It was our country.

You know, there's a poet called Jean "Binta" Breeze, and she said,

"You are the child of the country where your umbilical cord is cut."

So, in my heart,

although I'm a Sikh...

..my ancestry comes from India,

to me, I'm an African.

I'm a child of Africa.

I miss my country.

We left many, many years ago.

Well, we didn't leave.

We were forced out.

I want to see that the whole Kampala street

is not full of Indians.

What will you do to these people if they don't go?

OK, you will see.

I think they will be sitting like they are sitting on the fire.

What happens when you're told you don't belong,

when a ruthless leader turns on an entire race?

50-odd years, I've been carrying this.

It's been tough.

In 1972, Uganda was home to 80,000 Asians.

In the 70 years since Britain brought them into East Africa,

the Asian community has controlled Uganda's economy.

When dictator Idi Amin came to power,

he gave them all just 90 days to get out.

What's he talking about? This is not going to happen. 90 days?

The prospect facing the Asians is being rounded up

and placed in camps under military control.

They started shooting randomly.

Even women, children.

He pretends to be a charming guy,

but behind the scenes, he was a murderer.

Is it true that you said

Hitler didn't kill enough Jews during the war?

HE LAUGHS

Will Britain help you?

Oh, yes, I think so. They will have to help.

We have been issued British passports.

CHANTING: If they're black, send them back!

If they're black, send them back!

As a child, you felt, "Is this a really bad nightmare?"

This is the story of one of the most brutal

mass deportations in living memory,

told by those who lived through it.

Every day was a constant battle to survive.

Falling out, the photos.

Old album. It's a very old album.

I was born in Kabale.

It's a very small town in the south of Uganda.

My upbringing was quite privileged.

My father had an established business, garage business,

and my dad had a Rolls-Royce.

It was his pride and joy, and none of us were allowed in there.

Only on special, special, special occasions.

It was a very idyllic childhood.

I remember quite a lot when I was young.

It was a very accepting, loving atmosphere.

And as kids, everybody mixed.

We had Africans, we had Ugandans, we had Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims.

We all spoke Swahili.

Can you still speak Swahili?

Oh, yes.

And we could go into each other's houses.

Any house you went into, mothers would immediately say,

"Have you eaten?" And we'd be fed, without question.

I can remember the food was the best, what they cooked.

We used to get mango, a proper mango

with chilli powder and some salt - amazing.

And some sugar on top - amazing.

That life at nine years old was paradise.

We lived in the centre of Kampala.

Saturday evening, we'd all get dressed up.

And then we'll sit on the edge, where the main post office was,

chatting away.

It felt like you're part of a family.

But gradually, things changed.

It was like any other day, you know.

DISTANT GUNFIRE/EXPLOSIONS

And while I was at school, you could hear this popping sound and,

you know, rat-a-tat sounds and these explosions.

So this frightened us at the time. It was really frightening.

"What is going on?"

We couldn't figure out what was going on.

And it was the adults who were saying,

"Twende, twende, twende, haraka."

"Let's go. Let's go, quickly."

And by late afternoon, late evening,

we hear the news that there'd been a coup.

Well, as you may have heard,

the Ugandan army have overthrown the government.

An unidentified voice on the national radio

announced the new leader is Major General Idi Amin.

When the coup happened, it was like,

"Is he going to be OK? Are we going to be OK?"

We didn't know who he was or what was he capable of.

We didn't know nothing.

We were told he was this top military leader.

I know exactly when and how I will die,

and this is secret.

And that is why you find that I was the last man

to withdraw from the battlefield.

I had known Idi Amin for quite some time.

And when you see him and meet him,

he gives you a picture of a charming, jovial, big man,

meaning very well.

But that same man could,

the following day, order your execution.

As a corporal in the King's African Rifles in the early '50s,

he was noted for brutality towards suspects.

In 1962, he narrowly avoided a court martial for the murder

and torture by his platoon of local tribesmen.

But to the public, his appeal, his charm,

came from that history of being a boxer.

I would like to speak

as the heavyweight champion here in Uganda.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

The only chance to defeat who are against

you or against the country is to win by knockout.

LAUGHTER

What did you think of Idi Amin at first?

At the beginning? At the very beginning.

Oh, we thought he was a saviour,

and that things would work out very well.

Um...

A lot of people were happy about him

and that's how they all start.

I mean, he did things which normal politicians would not do.

He was the only one who drove a car through town, unescorted.

And not just an ordinary car, but a convertible.

Nobody does that, even today.

Then the crowd got their first glimpse of the new head of state.

General Amin was driving his own Land Rover.

Initially, there was a lot of excitement.

And I remember him coming to Kabale

and he was greeted in the streets by cheering crowds.

President Amin had promised all sorts of freedoms

and a better economy for the country.

So I remember the adults talking,

and I remember them saying things like,

"He could be really good for Uganda."

NEWS: Then the crowd got their first public glimpse

of the new head of state.

General Amin was driving his own Land Rover.

PRODUCER: What does that bring back?

All the memories.

Making me cry.

I was a photojournalist for the national newspaper.

And Idi Amin, I've met about two or three times.

And if you see that expression on that photograph,

he's actually looking into my eyes and talking to me.

And he was pleasant at that time.

I had my own studio.

And I remember it was compulsory for everyone

to have the President's picture displayed on the wall.

And I sold them in thousands and thousands.

And it created me a small gold mine.

So I was excited about the future.

Despite widespread public support,

Amin orders an immediate purge of his political enemies.

Soon after Amin took over,

there was a lot of commotion locally.

We'd heard somebody had been killed and a car was set alight.

So my brother and I...

Exciting, exciting, exciting. We went off.

And even before you got there, there was this burnt smell.

I remember it was a Citroen,

and there was a burnt-out body in the front.

And people were just saying, "Don't go too close."

But we pushed our way in through the hips and the bodies

to try to get to the front.

And here was this person who'd been killed.

It was just surreal because...

..there was all this excitement around us.

It was just kind of the excitement of,

"Yes, we've got a new President. Yes, we..."

You know, the selling was, "We're trying to get rid of people who are

"not in favour of what's happening politically."

So a lot of this was happening.

My father, he was a very good hunter.

He was known for it.

Idi Amin got to know about that skill.

It did leave my father in a very difficult position.

He could not say no to Idi Amin.

If Idi Amin said, "I want this,"

my father had to try and find it and kill it.

And I remember he had gone hunting one day with my older brother.

But this particular day, they came back pretty quickly,

and my brother sort of said to us,

he said, "Oh, we saw bodies in a mass grave."

My brother was talking about how

they could smell the decomposition of the bodies.

And my father was told by the villagers

that President Amin's car was in the area, and he was told,

"It's really not safe for you and your son to be here."

So that was the first real sense of danger.

To further cement his power,

Amin seeks to show all Uganda that under his strong leadership,

the last embers of empire will be extinguished.

Until its independence in 1962,

the country had been a protectorate of the British,

who had brought thousands of Asians from India

to help build infrastructure.

In time, they flourished.

In the 70 years since Britain brought them into East Africa,

the Asian community, 80,000 out of a population of 10 million,

has controlled Uganda's economy.

They own nearly all the large shops and businesses.

They're the doctors, the clerks, the accountants.

Before Amin came,

Asians, to be honest, controlled Uganda.

The businesses, manufacturing,

everything, from top to bottom.

Even the Africans in regular work earn a bare £8 a month.

The lowest-paid Asians earn three or four times that.

The country was divided into three classes -

top, the British,

second class, Asians,

third and last class, Africans - the owners of the land.

You had the Asians with the money, doing business.

Well-to-do.

And then you had the Africans, who had very limited means.

Why is it, do you think, that in this country

the Asians have been and still are so successful?

Because the Africans, they didn't know the business.

How can they?

I was a young reporter.

I had hardly been abroad for television.

From the point of view of the Ugandans,

I felt quite a lot of sympathy.

I thought, here are people who've been promised independence

and what have they got?

The black majority were ostensibly in power,

but the economic power rested with the Ugandan Asians,

who had worked very hard, but who were brought in by the whites.

The Africans were not given a chance.

They were frustrated, right from the very beginning.

If the Africans had been given enough chance,

they could also have done as well, and we don't have...

We can't measure this because they were frustrated.

It was a rather unpleasant joke, but it was true.

You know, the white man ruled,

the white man kicked the Indian, and the Indian kicked the black man.

The golf club, an imperial legacy,

now admits Asians as well as Europeans.

The Africans are their caddies.

You could see that there was a lot of wealth

and it really wasn't being distributed.

And, you know, I was very aware from the remarks

I heard in the community that Africans were seen as lesser.

You know, for me, that was quite difficult...

..because around the age of eight years, I discovered I was adopted.

I was actually half African, half Asian.

So they had to go through the process.

At the time, it was Save the Children Fund

that dealt with adoptions,

and the radio said that an Asian baby had been found on the roadside.

So a few Asian families came forward,

thinking I was an Asian baby,

and then when they were told, actually, the baby's half African,

a lot of them just sort of melted away.

But my mum and dad said,

"It doesn't matter. We're still going to have her."

When I was at school, other children used to come up to me

and they used to say, "That's not your real family."

I did punch a few.

I did punch a few of them.

So I think I understood the disgruntlement

that the Africans felt towards the Asians.

You could sense the resentment.

That's why Idi Amin,

you know, because he was so smart in one way...

..he was ready and willing to exploit that resentment

in order to make sure that his dictatorship, military dictatorship

would gain support from the majority population in the country.

And the victims were Ugandan Asians.

For all patriots in Uganda, today,

President Major General Idi Amin has begun his new programme

for rebuilding the economy of Uganda.

At that time, I was 11 years old.

I remember hearing something on the radio.

We were sitting in our house at the time.

The newscasters made this announcement.

His Excellency has today announced that all Asians must leave Uganda.

From today onwards,

Asians have 90 days to leave the country.

This guy's lost it.

What's he talking about? This is not going to happen.

90 days?

That's ridiculous.

Asians should sell their businesses

and get their affairs in order as soon as possible.

I came home from work.

My wife asked me whether I had heard the news -

all the Indians had to leave Uganda in 90 days.

And I said, "You can't be serious."

He might only just have played a big joke.

But as days passed,

he became more sort of aggressive.

The Asian community had only received an invitation

to meet the President overnight, and some of them frankly admitted

that they were too frightened to attend.

Finally, a dozen of their leaders gathered at midday

at General Amin's house.

Then came the diplomatic representatives of Britain.

This was the first time that our man in Uganda had been officially

informed of President Amin's plans to expel the Asians.

When President Amin finally appeared,

he asked his guests to join him in a buffet lunch.

LAUGHTER

I think I will now issue my statement.

Asians have kept themselves apart

as a closed community.

They have been milking the economy of the country.

These Asians were brought by British, here to Uganda.

Therefore, the British,

they are responsible to look after those Asians.

I want to see that the whole Kampala street is not full of Indians.

It must be proper black and the administration

in those shops is run by the Ugandans.

What will happen to these people if they don't go by the time limit?

I think they will be sitting like they are sitting on the fire.

I will tell you this - you just wait after three months.

What will you do to them? OK, you will see.

LAUGHTER

I think they will not sit comfortably here in Uganda,

I will tell you this. I must actually tell you the truth.

Initially, people didn't believe

Well, you know, "Why do we have to leave?

"We don't need to.

"This is our home."

After the proclamation, people - it began to sink in

that this is really going to happen.

As the interview ended,

the British High Commissioner felt he must speak.

I explained to you this morning

the difficulties which my government foresees,

and I have now got to report what you have decided,

and seek further instruction.

Many Asians in Uganda hold British passports.

Now, Prime Minister Ted Heath must respond.

I remember I heard of the announcement...

..and I was really devastated to hear

that so many Ugandan Asians were to be turfed,

and there was a ticking time clock.

The government was debating

how they were going to deal with this problem...

..but it was a very difficult time for the country.

These were very volatile times.

There was high unemployment.

The ability to thrive and to prosper was constantly being challenged,

so there were a large number of working people or unemployed people

who thought that Britain offered them very little hope.

There was a mood of,

"If we get rid of the immigrants, somehow it will all be better."

In 1961, 50,000 immigrants came from India and Pakistan.

So, in one year, the coloured population rose

by more than a third.

The immigration of coloured people into this country

has just about gone far enough,

and it's about time that we put some curb on

the immigration of these people coming in,

whether they're from our own Commonwealth

or from other countries.

DIMBLEBY: Add in to this mix a very prominent

inflammatory Conservative politician.

This is perhaps the only constituency in Britain

where politics boil down to two words - Enoch Powell.

Enoch Powell is a singular man.

He is a man of willpower and relentless determination.

Enoch Powell was one of the most outspoken people

in British politics,

and he had some very racist thoughts.

In 15 or 20 years' time,

the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.

It is like watching a nation busily heaping up

its own funeral pyre.

He perfectly identified the fears that people had.

They did have problems with housing.

They did have problems getting jobs

and they feared, distrusted and thought these were alien people.

We are heading for strife and bloodshed.

CHANTING: Keep Britain white! Keep Britain white!

DIMBLEBY: People listened to it. A great many listened to it,

saying he was right.

Immigration? No!

Repatriation? Yes!

Immigration? No!

Repatriation? Yes!

Ted Heath was a moderate Conservative leader.

He saw that there was a great depth of hostility to immigration.

He had to both outlaw extreme racist behaviour,

and he had to respond by saying,

"We'll limit the number of immigrants who come to this country."

Britain had already spent years trying to tackle the immigration

of British subjects from other Commonwealth countries,

and in 1968, a controversial bill was passed

that restricted the numbers of black and Asian British passport holders.

Labour's Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1968

now excluded holders of British passports issued outside Britain.

In 1971, the Conservatives, back in power,

brought in another act which, even more effectively,

excluded coloured immigrants.

Roughly speaking, non-patrials are brown or black or foreign,

and subject to control.

Patrials are white and free from control.

The British Government at the time was facing a real predicament.

They didn't want to tell people,

"We've got tens of thousands of Ugandan Asians coming in."

The fear of government was that this could erupt, in a way.

There had been violence. There had been violence on the streets.

There had been race riots.

And although they knew that

Amin was a very nasty piece of work and very dangerous,

they thought somehow that it might be possible to swing him around.

In an attempt to avert a political crisis,

Heath sends a delegation to Uganda.

When Britain sent out Cabinet minister Geoffrey Rippon

to talk to the President, Britain's would-be negotiator

arrived at the President's residence in Kampala.

Before they sat down,

they walked together through the grounds in friendly fashion.

Doing well. We must see that the tree grows like a plant. Yes!

But however warm the expressions of mutual regard,

the press conference made it clear that there was little agreement.

My decision still stands of 90 days,

which I have explained.

The British Government will not put problem to Uganda,

that because of this, we should wait for long.

We shall be ready because I will not accept

any delaying tactics here in Uganda.

Though Britain now accepts that President Amin

will expel the Asians, Mr Rippon obviously thinks that

90, now 80 days, is far too short a time.

I am not going to change my mind at all between now and the 90 days.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Amin begins a campaign of intimidation against the Asians.

Today, as directed by Major General Idi Amin Dada,

all Asians have 76 days to leave the country.

Some people were saying, "Nothing's going to happen.

"He's just bluffing."

But then each day, yeah, it comes up on the radio.

"Day this, day that, day this."

"You need to do something now.

"You've got X amount of days left."

Announce it every day.

They used to announce it every day.

All Asians have 72 days.

And then very quickly,

atmosphere of the country changed.

We went for a walk one day

and he'd already made a point.

Amin says, "No miniskirts."

My sister had her friend with her,

and my sister's friend had a little bit, just her knee showing.

And my dad got stopped by two police officers

and they said that she's got a miniskirt.

My dad said, "No, that's not a miniskirt."

One of the officers slapped him straight on the face.

My mum didn't know what to do. She started crying.

We were too young to do anything about it.

I do remember seeing

there were loads of soldiers with their guns, walking around.

We didn't know what was happening.

But you felt that heaviness in the air.

I don't know if it came directly from Idi Amin

or whether it came from the soldiers,

but they said that we all had to carry an ID.

There was one occasion where my brother didn't take his ID,

and he was with his friend,

and they were just really lucky that the soldier said to them,

"If I ever see you out in the street again without your ID,

"I will shoot you."

Those carefree days of going out on the street, that had gone.

Outside the passport office of the British High Commission,

Asians gathered to register as British citizens.

For these people, a nightmarish 90 days has just begun.

The threat to Ugandan Asians is becoming increasingly real.

Many only hold British passports,

and with neighbouring countries closing their borders,

Britain is their only hope.

What do you think is going to happen

to people whom President Amin says must leave?

Will Britain help them?

Oh, yes, I think so. They will have to help.

Under any circumstances, they'll have to take us.

Why is that?

They have to. We are British subject.

We have been issued British passports.

But back in the UK, the public are making it clear

that the Ugandan Asians aren't welcome.

The views of the men of London's Smithfield Market -

focus for the most intense opposition

to taking in the Asians expelled from Uganda.

Nobody wants them. We've got no jobs to offer them

because we've got kids out of school now

who've got no jobs to go to.

They don't live the same as us.

Music going on all night.

Five in a bed and all that business, you know,

noise and one thing and another.

But if you go and complain about that, you're a...racialist.

You know, and I suppose if you say,

"Well, the government is under an obligation to these people

"because they were made a promise,"

how about the promises the government have made us?

CHANTING: If they're black, send them back!

If they're black, send them back!

If they're black, send them back!

If they're black, send them back!

If they're black, send them back!

Well, I think it's about time

the government took over its responsibilities.

Just because they've got a British passport,

doesn't mean to say that they can come into this damn country.

We're getting absolutely flooded out with them.

Do you think politicians have got the right idea about it?

No, I don't. There's only one bloke who's got

any guts about him at all, and that's Enoch Powell.

We have a right to say who shall and shall not

enter and live in this country.

We have a commitment to these people. No.

Never. And in my opinion, we have to carry out that commitment.

No, we have never given such a commitment. And I think

Mr Thomson is absolutely right. Never. There has never been

any pledge, merely because they hold the passport,

that there should be any right of admission to this country.

There is no pledge.

There is no evidence of a pledge.

It has never been given. It is a pure invention.

Heath's government attempts to persuade other countries

to take some of the Ugandan Asians instead.

It says, "Apart from the countries directly concerned

"in the Ugandan Asian crisis,

"requests for help have been made to the countries listed below."

Trying to get them to say,

"Yes, we will absorb some of these Asians."

Anything to reduce the number of Ugandan Asians

with British passports actually coming to Britain.

And, of course, most of them said no.

To me, Britain represented the values of decency.

I find it uncomfortable.

Because the British Government was fearful,

were they going to stand, as the former colonial power

who brought the Asians to Uganda at the very beginning,

and watch on and say, "Well, it's not our problem, guv",

when it absolutely was Britain's challenge and problem?

It was to deny the principles which had made Britain

a very important democratic country.

Saying, "Can we get rid of them elsewhere?"

Total misjudgment.

Total misjudgment.

From today onwards,

all Asians have 70 days to leave the country.

As kids, we realised something was wrong,

but we weren't exactly sure what.

And we stopped going to school at the time.

And there were discussions in the house.

Uneasiness, tension in the neighbourhood.

And then people started to arrive from different towns.

They'd arrive and you'd hear stories about killings,

beatings by the armed forces.

Some people were robbed.

Some people were abused.

Our African friends were saying, you know, "We don't like this.

"We don't know why this is happening."

There were the by-now familiar stories of looting by soldiers.

Some spoke too of being beaten up.

This man told me he'd been attacked in the street

by four soldiers and left for dead.

We were frightened to go outside.

We were frightened. We knew that it was dangerous.

After Idi Amin pronounced his edict about Asians having to leave,

they took everybody's car.

And then the next minute,

we saw all this row of cars coming down the hill.

So people started rushing out, thinking,

"Oh, wow, they're bringing our cars back."

But what actually happened as they went down the hill

and they entered that main street, the only street in Kabale,

they started shooting from the cars and they started shooting randomly.

You know, it was one of those times where you felt almost like,

"Is this a really bad nightmare?"

And that you're going to wake up and find it was just a dream I had.

I was the President of the National Union of Students of Uganda.

And when Idi Amin came to power,

we did not think that he was the right leader for the country.

All of us wanted to see Africans

playing a more active role in business.

However, Idi Amin handled it in a more radical, more racist manner.

None of us ever expected expulsion of Indians.

As opposition increases,

Amin attempts to crush dissent through his Cabinet.

All of you, you are in very high-ranking governmental positions.

You must not be like a woman, who is just weak.

You must teach people to love their leader.

If I see the minister is a coward,

automatically, I kick you out of my office.

At that time, people remarked

that we had the most educated Cabinet on the continent,

because the people who knew what to do were the ones now in charge.

But then he started taking them out of the ministerial posts,

replacing them with soldiers.

Amin increases his reliance on the military,

creating an elite team, known as Special Branch,

to silence opposition.

Special Branch were powerful, actually very powerful.

They could do many things

that would otherwise not be acceptable under the law.

When you are surrounded by Special Branch,

your days are numbered.

Life was getting more difficult,

but I had not stopped working.

I was getting all these so-called assignments for the newspaper.

One day, I had a phone call asking,

"Can you go and photograph something at the lake?"

The lake was very, very beautiful,

but on that day, it was such a horrible thing.

There were about eight or ten bodies floating in the water,

all wearing the khaki army uniform.

Special Branch people had picked up some of the soldiers

who probably were the opposition for Mr Amin.

But we were worried about those photographs

because the Special Branch people

would have known that I had taken the photographs.

GUNSHOTS

Whilst life in Uganda spirals towards outright lawlessness...

This is a mass grave in which at least 100 bodies lie buried,

all victims of Idi Amin's army.

..the argument within the UK Government reaches boiling point.

Our obligation to the Ugandan Asians is the moral one,

which we share no more than equally with all other nations,

and much less than equally

with their true home countries, notably India.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

This was now a major battle.

And so at that moment, I decided that was where I should fight

and make a stand,

because the issues were so enormously profound.

I find it completely and utterly morally indefensible

to grant a person a British passport,

and then when that person is in trouble,

to try to pretend that it is a worthless document.

APPLAUSE

Idi Amin is losing patience with Britain's dithering.

President Amin, who went on record that Hitler had the right answer

when he gassed six million Jews,

has warned them that if they aren't out of the country

by November the 8th, the prospect facing the Asians

is of being rounded up at gunpoint one morning

and crowded into camps in the remote countryside.

It's a grim thought, but one that most of the Asians here

I have talked to now regard as a real possibility.

Why do you ask me about Hitler?

Amin's Special Branch and foot soldiers are now going door to door,

arresting Asian people at random.

It was very, very bad.

Very, very bad.

The army personnel had taken over Kampala.

At a certain time, they announced curfew.

We didn't know what curfew was.

That said Idi Amin,

he said we're not allowed to leave the house

at 6:00 in the evening till 6:00 in the morning.

Anyone found breaking the curfew will face arrest and imprisonment.

You don't know if they can break the door down and come in.

So when 6:00 curfew is on, you close all the lights,

wash up, and then you hide under the beds.

You're under the bed with a candle burning.

Yeah, and you stay there. Quiet.

Do not make a sound.

And that's when it starts going dark

and things change.

GUNFIRE

The sounds of bullets, gunfire,

tanks moving from one area to another.

Shouting and screaming from the army.

GUNFIRE AND SHOUTING

It was a scary moment because every night was the same.

LOUD KNOCK AT DOOR

One night, there was a loud bang on the door.

So my brother went out to open the door

and these three armed personnel walked in, in army fatigues.

And, "Jambo, mzee."

"Hello, Dad - old man."

"We want to take you for questioning."

Dad said, you know, "What's the problem?

"I can answer things here."

And they said, "No, no, you need to come with us."

So my brother said, "I'll come with you.

"When you finish, I'll bring him back."

They said, "No, no, don't worry. We'll bring him back."

And then the edge in their voices was sharper.

And eventually, my dad kind of motioned to my brother -

"Look, don't worry."

And they walked out of the door.

So they took Dad.

We had no idea where he was taken.

As a child, to lose your dad...

..you don't think about that.

But this was a real possibility.

Good evening. I thought that you would like me

to put before you the full facts about the Ugandan Asians

following General Amin's decision

to expel British passport holders against the deadline of 90 days.

That has placed this country with a very difficult problem.

But in the end, these Asians with British passports

are a British responsibility.

They are already in great distress and anxiety.

In certain circumstances, their lives could be in danger.

And in the last resort,

if homes elsewhere in the world cannot be found for them,

we must take these unlucky people in.

I don't think Britain had any choice,

unless indecency had taken over from the rule of law

and from moral propriety and legal obligation.

But now there was huge pressure

to get them out before the 90-day deadline.

Many Asians flee their homes and flock to the capital

to find out how they can get to the UK.

Outside the passport office of the British High Commission,

Asians gathered to register as British citizens

to make sure that their names were on the list

when the evacuation flights

they expect the British to arrange materialise.

At the moment, our main worry is to

kind of get out of this country safely.

We are not even worried about our belongings or our things,

but what we would like is personal safety,

and life is being made very difficult.

Although he has given us a deadline,

I don't see how we will be able to get out within the deadline.

Uganda was not a nice place to be in any more.

You know, we were quite looking forward to leaving.

My father had died several months before.

I remember him being in bed

and I don't know what my dad had.

It happened very suddenly.

I would say literally within a matter of a couple of weeks,

he was gone.

But my mum still wanted us to go to England

on the basis of what he'd wanted.

My mum decided, "We need to get out, now."

We had to get up to Kampala

and there was a taxi driver

and he was the only one who was allowed to keep his car.

And suddenly, he turned up at the door and he said, "Time to go."

So I just remember it was very hurried, very quick.

There was a lot of people going to Kampala.

And so he warned us that there was a roadblock every 50 miles.

So he told us to be quiet and to be calm when the soldiers stop us

and not scream and not shout

if we saw anything that we shouldn't have seen.

We came to the first checkpoint.

And we were behind this one car.

The soldiers were coming out.

They all had their guns.

Rifling through the boots and opening the suitcases.

And then the car in front,

there was a wheelchair on top of the, on the roof rack.

And we were watching this from our car.

And there was a little disabled boy, around about eight.

And he was being carried by his dad.

The soldier was shouting at the man and he said,

"You don't need...

"You don't need him where you're going."

And I just remember the soldier just grabbed the boy...

..and shot him.

WOMAN SCREAMS

The mother started screaming

and the father put his hand over her mouth

to stop her screaming.

We just went silent.

Because, you know, it's like a wall of shock.

You're hit with a sight that your brain cannot comprehend.

And then the soldier went up to her and he said,

"I did good, Mama, didn't I? I did good."

And there were tears pouring down from her eyes, and she just said...

And then he said, "Right, get in the car and go."

So then it was our turn.

We all got out of the car.

He looked at me.

And you can see I'm not an Asian.

So he said to my mum,

"You need to leave her behind, because she's one of us."

And my mum said, "She's my daughter.

"I can't leave her behind."

He then took his gun and he pointed it at my mum.

And he says, "I'm ordering you. You have to leave her behind."

And my mum said, "No."

It was like time stopped still.

Almost like an out-of-body experience.

And then the soldier put his gun down, laughed,

and he said to my mum...

He did this.

"I salute your courage."

He said, "I salute your courage, Mama. You can go."

And we all piled in the car and we went.

It was very surreal. We did not talk.

Nobody said a word. I think we were in a state of shock.

I could not believe what my mum had done.

I'm looking at the back of her head, thinking,

"You were going to die.

"You were prepared to lay your life on the line for me."

But at the same time, you feel so guilty

because you've seen a little boy get killed,

and you realise you were just one of the lucky ones that survived.

As more desperate families make it to Kampala,

the UK must plan how they're going to evacuate

thousands of Asians from Uganda.

From today, all Asians have 60 days to leave the country.

The question now is - will they make it out in time?

The government wants to be able to lift 15,000 people in three weeks.

We had to help these people

and the deadline was fast approaching.

Overnight, you can hear tanks, gunfire.

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

You're thinking, "Are they coming here?"

Even though the faces were still,

the eyes betrayed the anxiety, the fear.

Suddenly, President Idi Amin turned up at the airport.

It's like somebody's turned the tap off.

Absolute silence.

And it's palpable, the tension. You can feel it.