ISIS killers slaughter 41 people including 38 pupils who were burned, shot or hacked to death with machetes in sickening attack on school in Uganda
- 41 bodies were recovered at a secondary school near the border with Congo
- Police said rebel group Allied Democratic Forces with ties to ISIS behind attack
Rebels linked to ISIS have killed 41 people, including 38 students who were burned, shot or hacked to death with machetes in a sickening attack on a school in Uganda.
Ugandan authorities have recovered the bodies of 41 victims, which included 38 students, one guard and two members of the local community who were shot outside the school, Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Mayor Selevest Mapoze said today.
An unknown number of people were abducted by the rebels, who fled across the porous border into Congo after the raid on Friday night.
Police said the rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), who have been launching attacks for years from their bases in the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and have ties to the Islamic State group (ISI), carried out the raid on Lhubiriha Secondary School in the border town of Mpondwe, late on Friday.
Mr Mapoze said that while some of the pupils suffered fatal burns when the rebels set fire to a dormitory, others were shot or hacked with machetes.
Ugandan authorities have recovered the bodies of 41 victims following an attack by suspected rebels on a secondary school near the border with Congo. The victims included 38 students, one guard and two members of the local community who were shot outside the school, Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Mayor Selevest Mapoze said today (file image)
‘A dormitory was set on fire and a food store looted. So far 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Bwera Hospital,’ police said in a statement, adding that eight others were in critical condition (file image)
The school, which is co-educational and privately owned, is located in the Ugandan district of Kasese, about 1.2 miles from the DR Congo border.
‘A dormitory was set on fire and a food store looted. So far 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Bwera Hospital,’ police said in a statement, adding that eight others were in critical condition.
Officers said Ugandan troops tracked the attackers into Congo’s Virunga National Park.
The military confirmed in a statement that Ugandan troops inside Congo ‘are pursuing the enemy to rescue those abducted’.
READ MORE: Machete-wielding ISIS fanatics slaughter 22 – including women and children – with at least 13 people beheaded in Congo massacre
Joe Walusimbi, an official representing Uganda’s President in Kasese, said some of the victims ‘were burnt beyond recognition’.
Winnie Kiiza, an influential political leader and a former lawmaker from the region, condemned the ‘cowardly attack’ on Twitter.
She said ‘attacks on schools are unacceptable and are a grave violation of children’s rights’, adding that schools should always be ‘a safe place for every student’.
The ADF has been accused of launching many attacks in recent years, targeting civilians, in remote parts of eastern DR Congo.
The ADF has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a US security ally who has been in power since 1986.
The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been sidelined by Mr Museveni’s policies.
At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in a town not from the scene of the latest attack.
A Ugandan military assault later forced the ADF into eastern DR Congo, where many rebel groups are able to operate because the central government has limited control there.
In March, at least 19 people were killed in DR Congo by suspected ADF extremists.
Ugandan authorities for years have vowed to track down ADF militants even outside Ugandan territory. In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in DR Congo against the group.
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