VOICE AIR MEDIA News Update
THE Ugandan military reported on Saturday that about 40 people were killed and six others were kidnapped by militants affiliated with Islamic State during an attack on a school in western Uganda close to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It was also reported that a further eight people remain in critical condition after the attack on Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe.
Defence spokesperson, Felix Kulayigye said in a statement that military personnel found the bodies of the dead when they arrived at the school.
“Our forces are pursuing the enemy to rescue those abducted and destroy this group,” he said earlier on Twitter.
The attack happened at around 23:30 local time (20:30 GMT) on Friday at the school in the Kasese district in western Uganda.
Over 60 people are educated at the school, most of whom live there.
The rebels burnt a dormitory and a food store was also looted during the incident, Enanga said.
Some of the boys were burnt or hacked to death, Major General Dick Olum from the Ugandan army told the media.
Others at the school, mostly girls, have been abducted by the group, he added.
Some of the bodies are said to have been badly burnt and DNA tests will need to be carried out to identify them.
The attackers are said to have torched the students’ mattresses and are also thought to have detonated bombs in the region.
Members of the wider community are possibly among the dead. A number of students remain unaccounted for.
Major General Dick Olum, the army’s commander for western Uganda and in charge of a military deployment in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the attackers had stayed in the town two days before the attack, marking their target.
He said an unidentified youth had gone to the school to check its layout before the attack.
“That is how the attackers came and locked the boys’ door. The boys really tried to fight back, but they were overpowered. The attackers had lit mattresses,” Olum told reporters.
“In the girls’ dorm, they found their door open, hence killing them and cutting them.”
The exact number of those who have died is still unclear.
Neither police nor the military said how many of the dead were schoolchildren.
The assailants, numbering about five, burnt down a dormitory and looted food, police and the military said.
“Our forces are pursuing the enemy to rescue those abducted and destroy this group,” defence spokesperson, Felix Kulayigye said.
The Ugandan army has also deployed planes to help track the rebel group.
Uganda and the DRC have held joint military operations in the eastern Congo to prevent further attacks.
Security forces had intelligence that rebels were in the border area on the DRC side for at least two days before Friday night’s attack, Major General Olum said.
The violent incident comes after last week’s purported ADF fighter raid in a community in the DRC close to the Ugandan border. More than 100 villagers left for Uganda but later came back.
This attack on the school, which is less than two kilometres (1.25 miles) from the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the first one on a Ugandan school in twenty-five years.