Ms Manju Dhiri, a British tourist caught up in the violence that rocked Kampala, tells our writer about her ordeal. Picture by Rebecca Nduku

The terrified motorbike rider stared at the enraged mob that surged towards him.

He tried to back away but it was too late. One of the youth in the unruly mob grabbed the young Asian rider by his shirt and threw him onto the road.

The mob beat up the young man, but he was rescued a short while later by police officers. However, his motorbike was burnt.

Ms Manju Dhiri, a British tourist watched all this from a hardware shop across the street in Kampala. She is grateful to the shopkeeper who saved her life by sheltering her.

Dhiri was one of the innocent visitors to Uganda caught in last week's riots. The mobs were protesting against the planned acquisition of 7,000 hectares of the nearby Mabira Forest by the Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (Scuol), a subsidiary of the Mehta Group.

It was a chilling encounter for Dhiri on her second day in Uganda and she had few choices. If she opted to run, her life would be in danger, simply because she is Asian. The murderous mobs of Kampala would not spare her. She chose to stay put.

"The angry mobs waved placards reading, 'Asians should go! Five Indians to die for each tree cut.' They yelled and screamed along the streets," she recalls.

Dhiri counts herself lucky to have escaped alive, but remains traumatised by the events.

"I will never forget the sight of people lying in pools of blood," she says. "It was so painful."

Dhiri had always longed to visit Uganda after the fall of the late Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dictator who expelled more than 70,000 Asians from the country in 1972. Sadly, her arrival coincided with the beginning of the protests.

"On landing at Entebbe Airport, I remembered the violence that had plagued the country in the past, but I dismissed these thoughts because I knew Uganda was peaceful," Dhiri says.

She describes the 42km journey between Entebbe and Kampala as slow. Then, she attributed this to traffic congestion and did not know of the tension in Kampala.

Nevertheless, it gave her a chance to marvel the beauty of the majestic hills that seemed to touch the skies together with the expansive banana plantations. The cool breeze simply took her breath away and she was glad to have come to Uganda.

"I was planning to spend a few weeks here and sample various traditional dishes. I also wanted to go site seeing," Dhiri explains.

Dhiri planned to visit a tailor who would make her a traditional outfit the following morning. But her trip was cut short by sound of gunshots. She initially dismissed the first sound as a tyre-burst. However, she soon found herself being confronted by an angry crowd on the street.

"I was approaching the clock tower when I meet the demonstrators who were attacking an Asian man. They beat him up and then set his motorbike ablaze," she recalls.

A speeding vehicle whose driver sped off to avoid the wrath of the demonstrators knocked down a journalist at the scene and the crowd chased after him. Sensing danger, Dhiri ran into one of the shops along Luwum Street where the owner sheltered her together with two customers.

The four watched the scenes of violence from the window that faced Parliament Square.

Ugandan military control people who protested over the Government's bid to sell 7,000 hectares of Mabira Forest to a private investor. Picture by AP

"I saw anti-riot police officers armed with AK-47 rifles move in to disperse the mob, but they were soon outnumbered. The police officers were trying to put up a barricade around Parliament Square when the protestors started throwing stones. The officers responded by firing tear gas canisters," she says.

A group of Asian worshippers who had gathered in a nearby temple were trapped for hours as demonstrators destroyed part of the building. At one point, the protestors attempted to burn down a mosque but the police moved fast and averted this.

"The protestors pounced on an Indian couple passing by and pulled the man from the car. They beat him unconscious and assaulted the woman," Dhiri says.

A trailer loaded with sugar, which they thought belonged to the company in question, Scuol, was ambushed and set on fire.

"I do not know what happened to the driver, because the trailer cabin was high and I could not see him," she says.

Dhiri saw anti-riot trucks with water cannons moving around the trouble streets of Kampala. Following them were the anti-riot police officers.

"Several innocent passers-by were shot and they lay in pools of blood, inches from where I was," she describes with a look of pain in her eyes. "But the police did not have mercy. They simply fired at anyone."

Dhiri describes the situation as being "an absolute mayhem". She adds that one would think that "Idi Amin had returned". From her hideout, she saw a security officer shoot two rioters when they tried to attack him.

The riots went on until afternoon when a heavy downpour began. But this did not deter the protestors. More than 100 Asians sought police protection fearing attacks in the night.

Thirty-six hours later, Dhiri managed to sneak away from the shop and went to the police.

"I told them I was a British tourist and asked them if they could help me return home. They agreed and took me to the airport," Dhiri says.

Dhiri successfully managed to book a Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi. On arrival in Nairobi the Kenya Airports Authority staff at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport received her warmly and assured her that she was safe.

Speaking at Hilton Hotel where she has been staying since then, Dhiri told The Saturday Standard that she is preparing to return to Britain. But the memories of the Uganda riots continue to haunt her.

"The rioters did not care who you were as long as you were looked like an Asian," Dhiri recalls.