MPONDWE, Uganda — Distraught households gathered at a mortuary in western Uganda on Sunday for any news of their family members after a militant assault left dozens of scholars lifeless and others lacking.
Officials say a minimum of 41 individuals, largely college students, have been massacred at a secondary faculty close to the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo late Friday by militants linked to the Islamic State group.
Victims have been hacked, shot and burned to dying in a brutal assault at Lhubiriha Secondary School in Mpondwe that has shocked Uganda and drawn condemnation from across the globe.
The military and police have blamed the Allied Democratic Front (ADF), a militia primarily based in DR Congo, who fled again to the border with six abductees in captivity after the assault.
The navy mentioned it was pursuing the attackers and would get well these kidnapped.
Many of the victims have been burned past recognition when the attackers set a locked dormitory ablaze, irritating efforts to establish the lifeless and account for the lacking.
At a mortuary in Bwera, a city close to the place the assault occurred, households wailed because the our bodies of their family members have been put into coffins and brought away for burial.
But for a lot of others, there was no news of lacking family. Many of these killed within the fireplace have been transferred to the town of Fort Portal the place DNA testing could be carried out.
It is the deadliest militant assault in Uganda since 2010, when 76 individuals have been killed in twin bombings in Kampala by the Somalia-based group Al-Shabaab.
‘They pays’
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres referred to as it “an appalling act” whereas the United States, an in depth ally of Uganda, and the African Union additionally despatched their condolences and condemned the bloodshed.
Seventeen male college students have been burned of their dormitory whereas 20 feminine college students have been hacked to dying, mentioned Uganda’s first girl and training minister, Janet Museveni.
A safety guard and three members of the general public have been additionally killed, officers mentioned.
The military would observe down “these evil people and they will pay for what they have done,” Museveni mentioned on Saturday.
But questions have been raised about how the attackers managed to evade detection in a border area with a closely navy presence.
Major General Dick Olum informed AFP that intelligence urged the presence of the ADF within the space a minimum of two days earlier than the assault, and an investigation could be wanted to determine what went fallacious.
Uganda and DR Congo launched a joint offensive in 2021 to drive the ADF out of their Congolese strongholds, however the measures have did not blunt the group’s violence.
In June 1998, 80 college students have been burnt to dying of their dormitories in an ADF assault on Uganda’s Kichwamba Technical Institute close to the DR Congo border.
More than 100 college students have been kidnapped. — Agence France-Presse
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
