At least 25 people were killed in a “terrorist attack” on a school in western Uganda, the east African country’s police spokesman said on Saturday.
“So far 25 bodies have been found and taken from the school to Bwera hospital,” spokesman Fred Enanga said.
Bwera is located near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRCongo).
Ugandan police blamed the attack on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group with unclear links to Islamic State (IS).
Police and the army launched an “intense pursuit” of the attackers in the Congolese Virunga National Park, Ugandan authorities said, quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.
According to the police, “a dormitory was burned down and a grocery store was looted” during the attack, which also caused eight serious injuries.
The injured “remain in critical condition at Bwera hospital,” the police spokesman said.
The ADF is a rebel group of Ugandan origin, but is currently based in the Congolese provinces of North Kivu and neighboring Ituri, near the border the DRC shares with Uganda.
The ADF’s objectives are unclear and IS sometimes claims responsibility for its attacks.
Although UN experts found no evidence of direct Islamic State support for the ADF, the Ugandan group was classified by the United States as a “terrorist organization” affiliated with the jihadist group in March 2021.
According to the Kivu Security Barometer (KST), the ADF is responsible for more than 3,800 deaths in 730 attacks in the DRC since 2017.
Ugandan authorities have accused the group of staging attacks on its soil, including two suicide bombings in Kampala in November 2021 and assassinations of senior officials.
In November 2021, the DR Congo and Ugandan armies launched a joint military operation on Congolese soil against the ADF, which is still ongoing, although rebel attacks have not stopped.
Since 1998, eastern DR Congo has been mired in a conflict fueled by rebel militias and the army, despite the presence of the UN mission in the country (Monusco), with some 16,000 uniformed personnel on the ground.
Source: TSF
