At least 41 killed in rebel attack on Ugandan school near Congo border

KAMPALA, Uganda — Suspected rebels attacked a school in a remote area of Uganda near the Congo border, killing at least 41 people in a late Friday night raid before fleeing across the porous frontier, authorities said. Thirty-eight students in their dormitories were among the victims.

Militants armed with guns and machetes attacked the school in the frontier district of Kasese, leaving some students burned beyond recognition and others shot or hacked to death, an area mayor said.

In addition to the 38 students, one guard and two residents of the local community in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha town were killed in the attack, Mayor Selevest Mapoze said. Uganda’s military said the rebels also abducted six students to transport food looted from the school’s store.

Lhubiriha Secondary School, co-ed and privately owned, is located just over a mile from the Congo border.

Authorities blame the massacre on the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, a shadowy extremist group.

The ADF has been accused of launching many attacks targeting civilians in remote parts of volatile eastern Congo, though it rarely claims responsibility. Villagers in the Congolese provinces of Ituri and North Kivu were victims of the group’s alleged attacks in recent years.

Attacks on the Ugandan side of the border are rare, thanks in part to the presence of an alpine brigade of Ugandan troops in the region.

The school attack sent shockwaves in this normally peaceful East African country whose longtime leader cites security as a strength of his government. It is also a blow to the country’s armed forces, who since 2021 deployed in parts of eastern Congo under a mission specifically to hunt down the militants accused of attacking the school.

Speaking to reporters near the scene of the attack, the commander of Ugandan troops in Congo told reporters that the rebels spent two nights in Kasese before carrying out their attack. He gave no further details.

When under pressure, ADF rebels “divert” their pursuers’ attention by splitting into small groups that then launch violent attacks in other places, Maj. Gen. Dick Olum said, suggesting the latest attack was the rebels’ attempt to ease battlefront pressure.

“A typical ADF signature,” he said, “because this is pressure. They are under huge pressure, and that’s what they have to do to show the world that they are still there, and to show the world that they can still do havoc.”

The school raid, which happened about 11:30 p.m., involved about five attackers, according to the Ugandan military. Soldiers from a nearby brigade who responded to the attack found the school on fire, “with dead bodies of students lying in the compound,” military spokesman Brig. Felix Kulayigye said in a statement.

Winnie Kiiza, an influential political leader and a former lawmaker from the region, condemned the “cowardly attack” on Twitter. She said “attacks on schools are unacceptable and are a grave violation of children’s rights,” adding that schools should always be “a safe place for every student.”

The ADF has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a U.S. security ally who has held power in this East African country since 1986.

The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in a town not far from the scene of the latest attack.

A Ugandan military assault later forced the ADF into eastern Congo, where many rebel groups are able to operate because the central government has limited control there. The group has since established ties with the Islamic State group.

In March, at least 19 people were killed in Congo by suspected ADF extremists.

Ugandan authorities for years vowed to track down ADF militants even outside Ugandan territory. In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in Congo against the group.