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The ongoing repairs on the Karuma Bridge have doubled the costs and travel time for passengers, leaving many in distress.

Transport fares have surged from Shs25,000 to between Shs35,000 and Shs40,000, depending on the bus company, while what used to be a five-hour journey now stretches to at least 10 hours.

The most challenging part of the journey is the stretch between Karuma Town Council in Kiryandongo District and Kamdini Trading Centre in Oyam District, a distance of about 20 kilometres.

As the lifeline connecting northern Uganda to the rest of the country, the Karuma Bridge has become a bottleneck, forcing passengers into a frustrating shuffle between buses and smaller vehicles to cross the Nile.

I travelled from Gulu City to Kampala and back at the weekend, witnessing firsthand the challenges passengers face. Travellers from the Acholi, West Nile, and Lango sub-regions are now required to disembark at Kamdini, board smaller vehicles to cross the Karuma Bridge, and then reboard buses waiting on the other side—a process that turns the journey into an ordeal. Travellers from Kampala to three sub-regions are also subjected to the same ordeal.

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