Uganda school attack: 40 students killed by militants linked to the Islamic State group

Around 40 people, mostly students, have been killed at a school in western Uganda by rebels linked to the Islamic State (IS) group.

A further eight people remain in a critical condition following the attack at Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe.

The boys who lived in the dormitories were among the dead. Many others, mostly women, were abducted, authorities said.

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – were blamed.

The attack happened around 23:30 (20:30 GMT) on Friday at the school in Kasese district in western Uganda.

More than 60 people are educated at the school, most of them live there.

About five suspected ADF rebels carried out the attack, burning school buildings and looting food stores, the Ugandan army said.

Some of the boys were burned or hacked to death, Maj Gen Dick Olum from the army said.

Survivors told local media that the attackers used machetes against students before throwing a bomb into a dormitory.

The ages of the victims are unknown.

Some of the bodies are said to be badly burned and DNA tests will have to be done to identify them.

The attackers are said to have set students’ mattresses on fire and are also believed to have detonated bombs in the region.

Photos of burnt school buildings have gone viral on social media.

Members of the wider community are likely to be among the dead. Many students remain unidentified and the exact number of dead is still unclear.

Many of the bodies have been transferred to Bwera Hospital, national police spokesman Fred Enanga said.

Soldiers chased ADF rebels into DRC’s Virunga national park – Africa’s oldest and largest national park home to rare species, including mountain gorillas.

Militias including the ADF also use the vast expanse, which borders Uganda and Rwanda, as a hideout.

“Our forces are pursuing the enemy to rescue the abductees and destroy this group,” defense spokesman Felix Kulayigye said on Twitter.

The Ugandan army has also deployed helicopters to help track down the rebel group in the mountains.

Uganda and the DRC are conducting a joint military operation in eastern DR Congo to prevent ADF attacks.

The security forces had intelligence that the rebels were in the border area of ​​the DRC side for at least two days before the attack on Friday night, Maj Gen Olum said.

But local residents criticized the authorities for not being prepared for the attack.

“If they tell us that the borders are safe and security is tight, I want the security to tell us where they were when these killers came to kill our people,” a resident told reporters.

The deadly episode follows an attack last week by suspected ADF fighters on a DRC village near the Ugandan border. More than 100 villagers fled to Uganda but have since returned.

The attack on the school, located less than two kilometers (1.25 miles) from the DRC border, was the first attack on a school in Uganda in 25 years.

In June 1998, 80 students burned to death in their dormitories in an ADF attack on the Kichwamba Technical Institute near the DRC border. More than 100 students were abducted.

The group may target schools as a means of recruiting children, according to Richard Moncrieff, a regional expert at the International Crisis Group. But they also do it for shock value, he told the BBC.

“These are terrorist groups that want to create and affect through violence, they want to show that they are there, show that they are active with their partners and allies of ISIS in other parts of the world,” said Mr Moncrieff, using another acronym for IS.

The ADF was created in eastern Uganda in the 1990s and took up arms against the long-serving President, Yoweri Museveni, who accused the government of persecuting Muslims.

Some members of the Ugandan Muslim community say they face discrimination in public life, including in education and the workplace.

After being defeated by the Ugandan army in 2001, the ADF moved into the North Kivu province of the DRC.

The group’s chief founder, Jamil Makulu, was arrested in Tanzania in 2015 and is being held in a Ugandan prison.

ADF rebels have been operating from within the DRC for the past two decades.

Makulu’s successor, Musa Seka Baluku, reportedly first pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2016, but it was only in April 2019 that IS first acknowledged its activity in the area.

The Islamic State as a group has mostly been defeated, although there are a large number of IS-affiliated militant groups throughout the Middle East and Africa.