Dozens of people were killed in a terrorist attack on a school in western Uganda at the hands of a jihadist-affiliated militia, a police spokesman said Saturday.
“So far 25 bodies have been collected from the school and taken to Bwera hospital,” spokesman Fred Enanga initially said, referring to a town two kilometers from the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Enanga explained that the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) militia, which has its stronghold in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), attacked a secondary school near Bwera, where they set fire to a dormitory and looted a food store. . The spokesman said that eight victims were also rescued alive, who “are in a critical situation at Bwera hospital.”
Subsequently, the number of victims rose. “37 bodies were found and taken to the Bwera hospital morgue,” Army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said in a statement.
The “terrorist attack” occurred at the Lhubirira school, in the town of Mpondwe, the Police said in a statement published on their Twitter social network account. The official report states that Ugandan government troops tracked the attackers into Congolese territory, although it does not make it clear whether the victims were students. A public official later confirmed that all those who died initially were students.
“It has been confirmed that all those killed so far were students at the school,” said Joe Walusimbi, a district commissioner for the Kasese district, where the school is located. According to the last count, however, not all of the deceased were students.