At least 41 killed, including students, in rebel attack on Ugandan school

Thirty-eight college students of their dormitories had been among the many victims.

Some college students had been burned past recognition, and others had been shot or hacked to dying after militants armed with weapons and machetes attacked the college within the frontier district of Kasese, an area mayor instructed The Associated Press.

In addition to the 38 college students, one guard and two residents of the area people in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha city had been killed within the assault, stated Mayor Selevest Mapoze.

A Ugandan army assertion stated the rebels kidnapped six college students, taken as porters of meals looted from the college’s retailer.

The college, co-ed and privately owned, is situated about two kilometres from the Congo border.

Authorities are blaming the bloodbath at Lhubiriha Secondary School on the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, a shadowy extremist group which has been launching assaults for years from bases in risky jap Congo.

Villagers within the Congolese provinces of Ituri and North Kivu have been the victims of the group’s alleged assaults lately.

But assaults on the Ugandan aspect of the border are uncommon, thanks partially to the presence of an alpine brigade of Ugandan troops within the area.

The assault has despatched shockwaves on this usually peaceable East African nation whose long-time chief cites safety as a energy of his authorities.

It can be a blow to the nation’s armed forces, who since 2021 have deployed in elements of jap Congo underneath a mission particularly to seek out the militants accused of attacking a faculty.

Speaking to reporters close to the scene of the assault, the commander of Ugandan troops in Congo instructed reporters that the rebels spent two nights in Kasese earlier than finishing up their assault.

He gave no additional particulars.

ADF rebels, when underneath stress, “divert” their pursuers’ consideration by splitting into small teams that then launch violent assaults somewhere else, stated Maj.

General Dick Olum, suggesting that the newest assault was an try by the rebels to ease battlefront stress.

“A typical ADF signature,” he stated, “because this is pressure. They are under huge pressure, and that’s what they have to do to show the world that they are still there, and to show the world that they can still do havoc.”

The college raid, which occurred round 11.30pm, concerned about 5 attackers, in accordance with the Ugandan army.

Soldiers from a close-by brigade who responded to the assault discovered the college on hearth, “with dead bodies of students lying in the compound,” military spokesman Brig. Felix Kulayigye said in a statement.

Winnie Kiiza, an influential political leader and a former lawmaker from the region, condemned the “cowardly attack” on Twitter.

She stated “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 Congo.

It rarely claims responsibility for attacks.

The ADF has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a US security ally who has held power in this East African country since 1986.

The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been sidelined by 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 far from the scene of the latest attack.

A Ugandan military assault later forced the ADF into eastern Congo, where many rebel groups are able to operate because the central government has limited control there.

The group has since established ties with the Islamic State group.

In March, at least 19 people were killed in 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 Congo against the group.