Uganda has lost 15-year-old Nikita Pearl Walingwa who starred in Disney movie Queen of Katwe to a cancerous brain tumour.

In a BBC report quoting Gayaza High School which Nikita attended 2018, the child actress had a brain tumour which local media reported was first diagnosed back in 2016 which she recovered from in 2017 only to discover another later on.

Nikita who featured in the Ugandan movie Queen of Katwe in 2016, played the character Gloria, a younger friend of the main character in the 2016 film, was “a darling to many”, the secondary school wrote on Twitter.

‘We are gutted as @gayazahigh community. No words can explain the pain at the moment. R.I.P Nikita,’ the school said.

We are gutted as @gayazahigh community. No words can explain the pain at the moment. R.I.P Nikita //t.co/0lCCV7UeCD
— Gayaza High School (@gayazahigh) February 16, 2020

Also Read:

‘Nikita Pearl Waligwa was not only a star, but she was also an inspiration to every young girl,’ read an obituary in the online version of the New Vision, a Ugandan daily newspaper.

One of Gloria’s memorable quotes from Queen of Katwe movie is “The small one can become the big one.”

Queen of Katwe movie is the biography and extraordinary life story of the local chess prodigy, Phiona Mutesi, an unschooled girl from a poor background who took up chess in 2005 and overcame many odds to become the first female winner of Uganda’s junior chess championships.

She then started to represent in international competitions at the age of 17.

Lupita Nyong’o, a Kenyan Oscar-winning actress, and Britain’s David Oyelowo also starred in the Queen of katwe movie. It was filmed in Katwe, a slum in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

In a tribute, Lupita Nyogo said on Instagram ‘’

View this post on Instagram

It is with great sadness that I post about the passing of Nikita Waligwa, the sweet, warm, talented girl whom I worked with on the film, Queen Of Katwe. She played Gloria with such vibrancy. In her real life she had the enormous challenge of battling brain cancer. My thoughts and prayers are with her family and community as they come to terms with having to say goodbye so soon. May she truly rest in piece. May it be well with her soul.
A post shared by Lupita Nyong’o (@lupitanyongo) on Feb 16, 2020 at 3:44pm PST