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

KAMPALA, Uganda —  Attackers believed to be rebels struck a school in a remote area of Uganda near the Congo border, killing at least 41 people before fleeing across the porous frontier, authorities said. Thirty-eight students in their dormitories were among the victims of the nighttime raid.

Some students were burned beyond recognition, and others were shot or hacked to death after militants armed with guns and machetes attacked the school in the frontier district of Kasese, a local mayor told the Associated Press.

In addition to the 38 students, one guard and two residents of Mpondwe-Lhubiriha town were killed, said Mayor Selevest Mapoze. A Ugandan military statement said the rebels abducted six students, taken as porters of food looted from the school’s store.

The school, coed and privately owned, is in the Ugandan district of Kasese, just over a mile from the Congo border.

Authorities are blaming the massacre at Lhubiriha Secondary School on the Allied Democratic Forces, an extremist group that has been launching attacks for years from its bases in volatile eastern Congo. But 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 attack is a blow to the East African country’s armed forces, which since 2021 have deployed in parts of eastern Congo under a mission specifically to hunt down the militants.

Speaking to reporters near the scene of the attack, the commander of Ugandan troops in Congo said that the extremist group’s rebels, when under pressure, “divert” their pursuers’ attention by splitting into small groups that then launch violent attacks in other places.

Maj. Gen. Dick Olum suggested that the latest attack was an attempt by the rebels to ease battlefront pressure.

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

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Winnie Kiiza, an influential political leader and a former lawmaker from the region, posted on Twitter to condemn the “cowardly attack.” She said “attacks on schools are unacceptable and are a grave violation of children’s rights.”

The extremist group has been accused of launching attacks in recent years targeting civilians in eastern Congo; it rarely claims responsibility.

The Allied Democratic Forces has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has held power 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 pushed the Allied Democratic Forces 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 Allied Democratic Forces extremists.

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