An armored personnel carrier of the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) is seen outside the facility of an attack in Mpondwe, Uganda, on June 17, 2023 at Mpondwe Lhubiriha High School. The death toll in an attack on a school in western Uganda by militants linked to the Islamic State group has risen to 37, a military spokesman said. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
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Ugandan authorities have found the bodies of 41 people, including 38 students, burned, shot or attacked to death after suspected rebels attacked a high school near the border with Congo. the local mayor said on Saturday.
According to the Ugandan military, at least six people have been abducted by the rebels, who fled across the lax border into Congo following Friday night’s raid.
Authorities blamed the massacre at Lhubiriha High School in the border town of Mpondwe on the Allied Democratic Forces, a shadowy extremist group with ties to the Islamic State, which carried out the attacks. for years from bases in volatile eastern Congo.
The victims included students, a security guard and two members of the local community who were killed outside the school, Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Mayor Selevest Mapoze told the Associated Press.
Mapoze said some students suffered severe burns when rebels set fire to their dormitories and others were shot or attacked with machetes.
The Ugandan military said the raid, which took place around 11:30 p.m., involved about five attackers. Army spokesman Brig. Felix Kulayigye said in a statement.
That statement cited 47 bodies, with eight others injured and being treated at a local hospital. The Ugandan army is “pursuing the perpetrator to rescue the kidnapped students” who were forced to bring the looted food to Congo’s Virunga National Park, it said.
The school, both male and female, and privately owned, is located in the Kasese district of Uganda, about 2 km (1.2 mi) from the Congo border.
Joe Walusimbi, an official representing Uganda’s president in Kasese, told the AP by phone that some of the victims “were burned beyond recognition.”
Winnie Kiiza, an influential political leader and former MP in the region, condemned the “cowardly attack” on Twitter. She said that “attacks on schools are unacceptable and a serious violation of children’s rights”, adding that schools should always be “a safe place for all students.”
The ADF is accused of carrying out numerous attacks in recent years against civilians in remote areas of eastern Congo. It rarely takes responsibility for attacks.
The ADF has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a US security ally who has held power in the East African country since 1986.
The group was founded in the early 1990s by several Ugandan Muslims who say they have been marginalized by Museveni’s policies. At the time, insurgents staged deadly attacks in Uganda’s villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in one town. not from the scene of the latest attack.
A Ugandan military offensive then forced the ADF into eastern Congo, where many rebel groups were able to operate because the central government had limited control there.
Since then, the group has established ties with the Islamic State group.
March At least 19 people died in Congo by suspected ADF extremists.
Ugandan authorities have for years vowed to track down ADF fighters even outside Uganda. In 2021, Uganda launches joint air strikes and artillery in the Congo against the group.
