Ugandan police announced on Saturday that gunmen linked to ISIS killed 37 people and kidnapped six others in a terrorist attack on a school in western Uganda, near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The police reported that "elements from the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan group based in eastern Congo that has pledged allegiance to ISIS, attacked Lubiriri Secondary School in Mpondwe, burned down a dormitory, and looted food late last night."
The police stated on Twitter: "So far, 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transported to Bwera Hospital. Eight critically injured individuals have also been hospitalized." The police did not specify the number of student casualties.
They noted that "military soldiers are pursuing the attackers who fled towards Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo." Felix Kulayige, spokesman for the Ugandan Ministry of Defense, stated on Saturday that troops are pursuing the school attackers to rescue abductees, mentioning in a statement that "soldiers found the corpses upon arriving at the school."
Private channel NTV reported that "the death toll has reached 41," while the state-run newspaper New Vision stated the number is 42. It clarified that 39 of the deceased are students, and some fatalities occurred when the attackers detonated a bomb during their escape.
In April, the Allied Democratic Forces attacked a village in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing at least 20 people. Uganda had sent troops into Congo to assist in fighting the Allied Democratic Forces. The group began its insurgency against President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in the 1990s from a base in the Rwenzori Mountains. It was largely defeated by the Ugandan army, but remnants fled across the border into the vast jungles of eastern Congo where they have continued their insurgency, launching attacks on civilian and military targets in both Congo and Uganda since then.
