Authorities claim that suspected ADF rebels raided a school in a rural part of Uganda close to the Congo border during the night, killing about 41 people before escaping across the permeable border. The victims included 38 students who were in their dorms.
According to a local mayor, militants armed with firearms and machetes stormed the school in the frontier region of Kasese. Some pupils were charred beyond recognition, while others were shot or cut to death.
According to Mayor Selevest Mapoze, the attack also claimed the lives of one guard, two locals, and 38 pupils in the town of Mpondwe-Lhubiriha. According to a military statement from Uganda, the rebels kidnapped six pupils and used them as food smugglers from the school’s store.
ADF is a covert extremist organisation that has been carrying out assaults from bases in the unstable eastern Congo for years. The organisation is said to have attacked locals in the Congolese districts of Ituri and North Kivu recently.
Attacks on the Ugandan side of the border, however, are uncommon, in part because of the Ugandan alpine brigade’s presence in the area.
This usually tranquil nation in East Africa, whose longtime leader lists security as a hallmark of his administration, has been rocked by the attack. It is also a setback for the nation’s security forces, who have been operating in eastern Congo since 2021 with the objective of finding the rebels suspected of bombing a school.
According to the Ugandan military, there were roughly five attackers in the school raid, which took place at 11:30 p.m. When responding to the attack, soldiers from a nearby brigade discovered the school on fire and “with dead bodies of students lying in the compound,” according to a statement from the military spokesman Brig. Felix Kulayigye.
An significant political figure and former politician from the area named Winnie Kiiza denounced the “cowardly attack” on Twitter. In her words, “attacks on schools are unacceptable and are a grave violation of children’s rights,” and she added that they should always be “a safe place for every student.”
In recent years, the ADF is accused of carrying out a number of attacks against residents of remote regions of eastern Congo. It rarely claims responsibility for attacks.
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, a U.S. security ally who has ruled this East African nation since 1986, has long been challenged by the ADF.
A 1998 attack in which 80 students were slaughtered in a community not far from the scene of the most recent incident was one of many devastating strikes the rebels carried out at the time in Ugandan countryside in addition to the capital.
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.
