By Abraham Odeke BBC reporter in Jinja, Eastern Uganda

Despite years of work by aid agencies, married couples in the eastern town of Jinja are still at war using knives, fuel and other weapons, resulting in serious injuries and death.

Nearly all the government hospitals I visited this week have admitted victims of domestic violence.

He attempted to drive a nail through her head

Evelyn Andera Okeya, Victim's sister

Jinja Hospital - the main referral centre in the Busoga region - has admitted 10 victims of such violence in just five days.

All the victims here are women - rushed to hospital from remote villages.

One of them lost her upper teeth when her husband hit her with a bottle.

But the most recent victims of the violence are found in Tororo Hospital where they were rushed over the weekend.

Pounced

They include a 40-year old woman, Anna Akoth Amuwene, who suffered serious injury to her private parts, nose, and tongue.

The husband, Stephen Angura, is alleged to have pounced on her on the evening of 18 May.

After strapping her mouth with a piece of cloth and tying her hands together, he used ropes to chain the victim to the sides of the bed, said Evelyn Andera Okeya, who is taking care of her injured sister at the hospital.

"My sister's husband then picked a small hoe we use for weeding the millet garden and began hitting her private parts and the stomach. He attempted to drive a nail through her head."

"All this time he had locked the bedroom door tightly and we were shouting for help," she said.

Fled

When I visited Tororo hospital on Sunday evening, the injured woman was still in a coma.

I married her properly by sending two cows and two goats to her parents

Isidori Odoi.

The doctors described her condition as "dangerous".

The police in Tororo have launched a man- hunt for the alleged assailant who has run away from the village in the company of his junior wife.

But men can also be victims.

Just across the hospital compound in the Male Ward, I found Isidori Odoi.

His wife had allegedly attempted to chop off his penis after a domestic brawl.

"It all started as a joke. I slapped her twice for delaying to replace the broken button on my shirt and I thought things ended there. I married her properly by sending two cows and two goats to her parents," Mr Odoi told the me from his hospital bed

Deep sleep

His wife apparently decided to take revenge for the painful slaps in the middle of the night when he began snoring under the influence of Kali-Kali, a potent local gin.

" I woke up to find the bed wet with blood. One of my testes was seriously injured and my tummy was in terrible pain.

'It started as a joke,' says Isidori

"My wife had fled leaving behind a hand-written note that she could no longer bear my bad manners. She thought I had died," he said.

Dr John Obonyo, the Tororo Hospital Medical Superintendent, admitted that cases of domestic violence were on the increase in the region.

Tororo hospital alone, he said, had recorded 51 cases since the start of this year.

Officials from the Mifumi Domestic Violence Project which is battling the menace in eastern Uganda told me they are going to fully support the police in the hunt for the attackers of those now undergoing treatment in Tororo Hospital.

Last year, the Mifumi project held a series of peaceful demonstrations which resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of 10 men who tortured their wives.