KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandan police mentioned a minimum of 25 individuals have been killed in a suspected insurgent assault on a college close to the Congo border.
A authorities official mentioned others had been additionally kidnapped.
In an announcement on Saturday, police authorities mentioned that the Allied Democratic Forces carried out the assault late Friday night time on a college within the border city of Mpondwe.
Lhubiriha Secondary College, which is privately owned, is situated within the Ugandan district of Kasese, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Congo border.
“A dormitory was burnt and a meals retailer looted. Thus far 25 our bodies have been recovered from the varsity and transferred to Bwera Hospital,” the assertion mentioned, including that eight others had been in vital situation.
It was not instantly clear if all the victims had been college students.
The assertion mentioned Ugandan troops tracked the attackers “into Congo’s Virunga Nationwide Park.”
Joe Walusimbi, an official representing Uganda’s president in Kasese, advised The Related Press over the cellphone that authorities had been attempting to confirm the variety of victims and people kidnapped.
“Some our bodies had been burnt past recognition,” he mentioned.
Winnie Kiiza, an influential political chief and a former lawmaker from the area, condemned the “cowardly assault” on Twitter. She mentioned, “assaults on faculties are unacceptable and are a grave violation of youngsters’s rights,” including that faculties ought to at all times be “a secure place for each pupil.”
The Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, is accused of launching many assaults on civilians lately, notably on civilian communities, in distant elements of jap Congo.
The ADF has lengthy opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a U.S. safety ally who has been in energy since 1986.
Established within the early Nineties in Uganda, the ADF later was pressured to flee into jap Congo, the place many insurgent teams are capable of function due to the nation’s restricted management over the world.
The group additionally has ties with the Islamic State group.
In March , a minimum of 19 individuals had been killed in Congo by suspected ADF extremists.
Ugandan authorities for years have vowed to trace down ADF militants “at house and overseas.” In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in Congo in opposition to the group.
