Photo credit, Bhavna Patani
Bhavna Patani was a schoolgirl when her family was forced to flee their home in Uganda.
47 minutes ago
Fifty years after Ugandan Asians were forced out of their country by dictator Idi Amin, some of them who settled in Britain remember the horror and trauma of their journey to safety .
In August 1972, tens of thousands of Asians were given 90 days to leave with just £50 and a suitcase. Bhavna Patani was only 13 when the order was given. She recounts seeing dead bodies floating in the rivers and being searched by armed officers as her family fled.
Photo credit, BHAVNA PATANI
Ms Patani’s family have become owners of a yoghurt factory in Coventry
“I was at school in Kampala and we were having a picnic when our teachers broke the news to us,” she said.
“That was pretty incredible news.”
Her family, who eventually settled in Coventry, were living in the eastern town of Tororo, where they ran an oil and soap factory, when they were told to “pack up and to leave,” she explained.
Photo credit, BHAVNA PATANI
The extended family lived in Tororo in accommodations above rented shops.
They had managed to pack some household items into trunks to send to their families in Kenya, but were stopped and searched at the town’s train station “by three soldiers armed with machine guns”. “They searched every bag to make sure we didn’t take any money or valuables,” Ms Patani said. “Now it seems like a dream, you move on and move on with your life, but at the time, definitely, it was very scary.”
Photo credit, Bhavna Patani
Bhavna Patani and her family have settled in Coventry after spells in Brighton and Leicester.
A “horrific” announcement made by dictator Idi Amin during the 90-day period that all unmarried Asian girls could no longer leave the country has “scarred terror throughout the Asian community”, he said. she explained, but was never implemented.
The family eventually made it safely to Britain, and continued to own and run the SpringDale yoghurt factory in Coventry. “It doesn’t matter that the wealth and possessions are gone,” she says.
“I think the unity and love of family and friends has really, really brought us together.”
Zakyu Bedani said his family became the first Ugandan Asians to live in Nuneaton.
Some 30,000 Ugandan Asians with British Overseas Passports have arrived in the UK and almost all have been granted asylum. Zakyu Bedani from Nuneaton was among them. According to him, the president’s announcement was initially treated as a joke.
“We didn’t believe it,” he says, but his family eventually left Masaka town in November 1972.
He saw his father being beaten by soldiers on the side of the road for overtaking a military vehicle. On arriving at a resettlement camp at Gaydon, near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, he says his family was told that “Nuneaton or Bedworth would be a good place to live”. “So we became the first Ugandan Asians in Nuneaton,” Mr Bedani said.
“We’re pretty happy now, we’ve made this place our home.”
Suresh Shah still helps run Shah’s Pan House in Coventry, which he established in 1976.
Suresh Shah, also from the town of Masaka, said his family was “very sad” to leave Uganda and his grocery store. “We left our car, our store and our beautiful country,” the 77-year-old said. Like Ms Patini, Mr Shah and his family settled in Coventry.
Within five years, the family managed to buy an Indian goods store, which he still helps run today. “I returned to Masaka about three years ago,” he explained. “I have good memories, but it was emotional.”
Photo credit, Getty Images
Thousands of families resettle in Britain