A rebel group with ties to ISIS killed at least 45 people, including 38 students, burning many of them alive. A rebel group in the Congo went across the border into the neighboring African country of Uganda. It then slaughtered the victims, abducted six people, and returned to the violent, lawless eastern region of Congo it came from.
Ugandan troops have now gone into the Congo hunting for them. The killings took place on June 16 in the town of Mpondwe town, near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They were orchestrated by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group that has pledged allegiance to ISIL (ISIS).
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni promised to hunt the assailants “into extinction.” “Their action – the desperate, cowardly, terrorist action – will not save them,” Museveni said, pledging to deploy more troops on the Ugandan side of the border.
Pope Francis offered a prayer on Sunday for “the young student victims of the brutal attack” that has shocked Uganda and drawn international condemnation.
It was the worst attack in Uganda since 2010, when 76 people were killed in twin bombings in the capital, Kampala, by the Somalia-based al-Shabab armed group.
Most of the victims died when the dormitory of the Lhubiriha Secondary School, located less than 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was set on fire late on Friday.
Students were sleeping when ADF fighters forced their way into the school. Some students hacked to death, while more were burned alive using petrol bombs. Some students survived by hiding under the corpses of others.
“We were getting ready to sleep when we heard shouting, we saw men wearing dark green clothes with guns, axes and machetes,” said Bright Mumbere, a student. “They wanted us to open the dormitory door and then started shooting.”
Uganda’s Minister of Education, who is also the country’s first lady, said 17 male students were burned in their dormitory while 20 female students were hacked to death with machetes.
The attackers, from the ADF armed group based in the eastern DRC, fled towards the Virunga National Park, a vast area that covers both sides of the border, after kidnapping six students, officials said.
Ugandan army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said troops were pursuing the perpetrators to rescue the abducted students.
Critics have expressed concern about the competence of the Ugandan military, asking how the attackers managed to evade detection in a border region with a heavy military presence.
Major General Dick Olum said intelligence suggested the presence of the ADF in the area at least two days before the attack, and an investigation would be needed to establish what went wrong.
Many of the victims were burned beyond recognition, thwarting efforts to identify the dead and account for the missing.
At a mortuary in Bwera, a town near Mpondwe, families wept uncontrollably as the bodies of their loved ones were put in coffins and taken away for burial.
Selevest Mapoze, Mpondwe’s mayor, said “most of the relatives have come to take their bodies” from the morgue.
But for many others, there was no news of missing relatives. The charred unidentified bodies have been sent to a city further from the border for DNA testing.
The ADF is classified by America as a terrorist group. It is the most violent of dozens of armed militias that compete for control of the mineral-rich eastern DRC. This year, the U.S. announced a reward of up to $5m for information leading to the capture of the ADF leader.
The ADF was formed in 1995 by a coalition of rebel forces – including the Uganda Muslim Liberation Army and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU) – to fight against the rule of Museveni, who has held power in the East African country since 1986.
Originally, the group was backed by DRC dictators who sought to fight back against Rwandan and Ugandan influence in the country.
But in 2013, the ADF began attacking Congolese military targets, leading the army to fight back. Consequently, ADF leader Jamil Mukulu fled to Tanzania in 2015, where he was arrested and extradited to his home country to stand trial on charges of “terrorism”.
This was not the first attack on a school in Uganda by the ADF. In June 1998, 80 students were burned to death in their dormitories in an ADF attack on Kichwamba Technical Institute near the DRC border. More than 100 students were abducted.
The ADF is also likely behind deadly suicide bombings in Uganda’s capital, Kampala in 2021, which triggered a Ugandan/Rwandan military operation in DRC.
