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KAMPALA, Uganda: A disjointed Ugandan border town on Sunday began burying the victims of a brutal attack on a school by suspected extremist rebels that left 42 people dead, most of them students, as security forces stepped up patrols along the border with the country’s volatile east. Congo.
One of the eight people injured in Friday night’s attack, in which 38 students were killed, died overnight, said Silveste Mabuse, the mayor of the town of Mpondwe-Lubereha.
“Most of the relatives came to collect their bodies,” he said, from the morgue.
In addition to the 38 students, the victims included a school guard and three civilians. At least two of them, from the same family, were buried on Sunday.
Some of the students were burned beyond recognition; Others were shot or hacked to death after gunmen armed with guns and machetes attacked Luberiha Secondary School, a co-ed and privately owned school, which is located about two kilometers (just over a mile) from the Congo border. Ugandan authorities believe that at least six students have been kidnapped, taking porters inside Congo.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack in a statement, urging “the importance of collective efforts, including through strengthening regional partnerships, to address insecurity across the (Congo)-Uganda border and restore lasting peace in the region.”
The atmosphere in Mbundwe-Lubereha was tense but calm on Sunday as Ugandan security forces patrolled the streets outside and near the school, which was protected by a cordon of police.
The attack is blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces, which rarely claim responsibility for attacks. Established relationships with Islamic country group.
In a statement on Sunday, in his first comment on the incident, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called the attack “criminal, desperate, terrorist and useless,” and vowed to deploy more troops to the Ugandan side of the border.
The ADF has been accused of launching several attacks in recent years targeting civilians in remote parts of eastern Congo, including an attack in March that killed 19 people.
The ADF has long opposed the rule of Museveni, the US security ally who has held power in this East African country since 1986.
The group was founded in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been marginalized by Museveni’s policies. At the time, rebels launched deadly attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were killed in a town not far from a Friday raid.
The attack followed the same rules of the game: violence against students. The attackers targeted two dormitories, using excessive force when the boys resisted, according to Ugandan officials.
“This terrorist group couldn’t get in, so they threw a bomb, they threw a petrol bomb,” said Education Minister Janet Museveni, who is also Uganda’s first lady. Therefore, these children were cremated.
Students have been attacked because schools are easy targets. Sometimes disciples are recruited into the ranks of the insurgents or used to carry food and supplies to the insurgents, and these raids provide media coverage that the extremists covet.
The raid appears to have taken the Ugandan authorities by surprise: first responders arrived after the attackers had left.
Mabuse said some villagers have temporarily moved away from the Mpondwe-Lubereha community for fear of further attacks.
The border is porous, with multiple footpaths not monitored by the authorities. Many parts of eastern Congo are outlawed, allowing groups like the ADF to operate because the central government in Kinshasa, the capital, has limited authority there.
But attacks by the ADF on the Ugandan side of the border are rare, thanks in part to the presence of a Ugandan Forces brigade in the area. Ugandan forces have been deployed to eastern Congo since 2021 as part of a military operation to hunt down ADF fighters and prevent them from attacking civilians across the border.
The deployment of Ugandan forces inside Congo follows attacks in which at least four civilians were killed when suicide bombers believed to be members of the ADF detonated their explosives at two locations in Kampala, the capital, in November 2021. One attack occurred near the parliament building and the second near a busy police station.
Military pressure on the rebels deep in Congolese territory forced them to split into smaller groups like the one that attacked the school, with the aim of “forcing us to withdraw our army to defend the Ugandan villages and this would save them from the losses they are suffering now,” according to President Museveni.
“Especially now that the Congolese government has allowed us to operate on the Congo side as well, we have no excuse not to hunt ADF terrorists until they are extinct,” he said.
One of the eight people injured in Friday night’s attack, in which 38 students were killed, died overnight, said Silveste Mabuse, the mayor of the town of Mpondwe-Lubereha.
“Most of the relatives came to collect their bodies,” he said, from the morgue.
In addition to the 38 students, the victims included a school guard and three civilians. At least two of them, from the same family, were buried on Sunday.
Some of the students were burned beyond recognition; Others were shot or hacked to death after gunmen armed with guns and machetes attacked Luberiha Secondary School, a co-ed and privately owned school, which is located about two kilometers (just over a mile) from the Congo border. Ugandan authorities believe that at least six students have been kidnapped, taking porters inside Congo.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack in a statement, urging “the importance of collective efforts, including through strengthening regional partnerships, to address insecurity across the (Congo)-Uganda border and restore lasting peace in the region.”
The atmosphere in Mbundwe-Lubereha was tense but calm on Sunday as Ugandan security forces patrolled the streets outside and near the school, which was protected by a cordon of police.
The attack is blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces, which rarely claim responsibility for attacks. Established relationships with Islamic country group.
In a statement on Sunday, in his first comment on the incident, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called the attack “criminal, desperate, terrorist and useless,” and vowed to deploy more troops to the Ugandan side of the border.
The ADF has been accused of launching several attacks in recent years targeting civilians in remote parts of eastern Congo, including an attack in March that killed 19 people.
The ADF has long opposed the rule of Museveni, the US security ally who has held power in this East African country since 1986.
The group was founded in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been marginalized by Museveni’s policies. At the time, rebels launched deadly attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were killed in a town not far from a Friday raid.
The attack followed the same rules of the game: violence against students. The attackers targeted two dormitories, using excessive force when the boys resisted, according to Ugandan officials.
“This terrorist group couldn’t get in, so they threw a bomb, they threw a petrol bomb,” said Education Minister Janet Museveni, who is also Uganda’s first lady. Therefore, these children were cremated.
Students have been attacked because schools are easy targets. Sometimes disciples are recruited into the ranks of the insurgents or used to carry food and supplies to the insurgents, and these raids provide media coverage that the extremists covet.
The raid appears to have taken the Ugandan authorities by surprise: first responders arrived after the attackers had left.
Mabuse said some villagers have temporarily moved away from the Mpondwe-Lubereha community for fear of further attacks.
The border is porous, with multiple footpaths not monitored by the authorities. Many parts of eastern Congo are outlawed, allowing groups like the ADF to operate because the central government in Kinshasa, the capital, has limited authority there.
But attacks by the ADF on the Ugandan side of the border are rare, thanks in part to the presence of a Ugandan Forces brigade in the area. Ugandan forces have been deployed to eastern Congo since 2021 as part of a military operation to hunt down ADF fighters and prevent them from attacking civilians across the border.
The deployment of Ugandan forces inside Congo follows attacks in which at least four civilians were killed when suicide bombers believed to be members of the ADF detonated their explosives at two locations in Kampala, the capital, in November 2021. One attack occurred near the parliament building and the second near a busy police station.
Military pressure on the rebels deep in Congolese territory forced them to split into smaller groups like the one that attacked the school, with the aim of “forcing us to withdraw our army to defend the Ugandan villages and this would save them from the losses they are suffering now,” according to President Museveni.
“Especially now that the Congolese government has allowed us to operate on the Congo side as well, we have no excuse not to hunt ADF terrorists until they are extinct,” he said.
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