At least 25 people, including children, were killed in an ISIS-led terrorist attack on a school in western Uganda near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, JEE News reported on Saturday, citing Ugandan police.
Militants from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – a Ugandan group based in eastern Congo that has pledged allegiance to ISIS – set fire to a dormitory at Lhubirira Secondary School in Mpondwe late on Friday, police said. Stolen food.
“So far 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Boyara Hospital,” Ugandan police said on Twitter.
However, it is not yet known how many school children were among the dead.
He further said that meanwhile eight victims have also been rescued, whose condition is critical in Boera Hospital.
The police added that the soldiers were chasing the attackers who fled towards the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
District commissioner Joe Wallisambi told JEE News that many students were still unaccounted for.
A sprawling area on the border with Uganda and Rwanda, Wiringa is Africa’s oldest nature reserve and is world-renowned as a sanctuary for rare species, including mountain gorillas.
Militias – dozens of which are active in eastern DR Congo – also use the park as a hideout.
Originally an insurgency in Uganda, the ADF gained ground in eastern DR Congo in the 1990s and has since been accused of killing thousands of civilians.
Since 2019, ISIS has claimed responsibility for some ADF attacks in eastern DR Congo, describing the fighters as the local branch, the militant group’s Africa Province wing.
This is not the first attack on a school attributed to the militia in Uganda.
In June 1998, an ADF attack on the Kichwamba Technical Institute near the DR Congo border left 80 students burned in their dormitory. More than 100 students were kidnapped.
While in April this year, the ADF attacked a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, killing at least 20 people.
Uganda and DR Congo launched a joint operation to drive the ADF out of its Congolese strongholds in 2021, but these efforts have so far failed to end the group’s attacks.
In March this year, the United States announced a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of an ADF leader.
