By Frank Kamuntu
ADF rebels hacked and burned 41 people including students to death in western Uganda in the country’s worst such attack in over a decade.
The army said it was pursuing militants from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) after the cross-border raid late Friday on a secondary school in Mpondwe in Kasese district near the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Investigators said dormitories were set alight and students cut down with knives in a brutal late-night assault by ADF, which is one of the deadliest groups active in DR Congo’s strife-torn east.
“Unfortunately, 37 bodies have been discovered and conveyed to Bwera hospital mortuary,” Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF) spokesman Felix Kulayigye said in a statement, referring to a town near where the attack occurred.
According to Maj Gen Dick Olum, who serves as the Ugandan commander of the UPDF forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo under the joint Uganda/DRC mission code named Operation Shujaa, rebels before attacking the school, they had spent two nights in Kasese.
”We have got information that the rebels spent two nights here before they raided the school. We have sent for choppers to be deployed in our search and rescue operation for the students who were abducted,” Maj Gen Olum said as he addressed curious locals who had gathered outside the school to get more details of what had happened.
