En Uganda, when some families were burying their dead on Sunday, others were still desperately looking for their relatives, missing after the jihadist raid on a high school that killed at least 41 people, mostly students, in the west of the country . A “desperate, cowardly” act for President Yoweri Museveni, who has promised to eliminate those responsible for this bloody assault, the worst of its kind perpetrated in the country for years.
“Their action, desperate, cowardly, terrorist, will not save them”, declared the president, who spoke for the first time since the raid committed in the night from Friday to Saturday by members of a group having pledged allegiance to the Islamic State organization.
Pope Francis prayed on Sunday “for the young student victims” of this “brutal attack” which shocked Uganda and sparked strong international condemnation.
A locked dormitory was set on fire
The victims were attacked with machetes, shot or burned alive. “They were in camouflage. They each had a hammer, knives, machetes and a gun with magazines,” said Elias Kule, an 18-year-old survivor.
The assault targeted Lhubiriha High School in Mpondwe, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ugandan army and police officials have incriminated members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist militia that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
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The attackers fled to Virunga Park in Congolese territory, also abducting six people after their deadly raid, according to the Ugandan army and police who promised to release the hostages. Fifteen other members of the community, including five girls, are still missing, said Eriphaz Muhindi, district president of Kasese, which shares a long forested border with DR Congo.
Seventeen victims were burned beyond recognition when assailants set fire to a locked dormitory in the high school, complicating victim identification and a missing person count.
Seventeen burnt students
Eriphaz Muhindi said DNA tests must be carried out on these victims, a process which could take some time. “It is a great pain for their families,” he said. Other desperate families waited for news all night in the cold outside a morgue in Bwera, a town near the scene of the attack.
Relatives, who were able to identify relatives inside the morgue, broke down in tears as they received their bodies and carried them away in coffins for burial. Others fidgeted anxiously, still without news of their loved ones.
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The government said on Sunday it would help with funeral arrangements, pledging to support the injured.
Seventeen male students were burned to death in their dormitory, which was completely destroyed by fire, and 20 female students were stabbed to death, Ugandan First Lady and Education Minister Janet Museveni said. Witnesses said the students had locked their door when they heard gunshots. Twenty female students tried to escape but were all killed with machetes. A security guard and three other people were also killed, officials said.
Monitoring failure
The African Union, France and the United States, close allies of Uganda, offered their condolences and condemned this bloodshed. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the attack “appalling”, saying that “those responsible for this appalling act must be brought to justice”. The army will hunt down “these diabolical people and they will pay for what they have done”, Museveni said on Saturday.
But questions have been raised about how the attackers managed to elude surveillance in a border region with a heavy military presence. The school is less than two kilometers from the border with DR Congo, where the ADF has been active and has been accused of killing thousands of civilians since the 1990s.
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Major General Dick Olum said on Saturday that intelligence services reported an ADF presence in the area at least two days before the attack, underscoring the need for an investigation. According to this officer, the attackers had detailed information about the school.
Uganda and DR Congo launched a joint offensive in 2021 to drive the ADF out of their Congolese strongholds, but these operations have so far failed to end the group’s attacks.
Friday’s attack on Lhubiriha High School in Mpondwe is Uganda’s deadliest since the 2010 twin bombings in Kampala in 2010 that killed 76 people in a raid claimed by Daesh-affiliated Islamist group ‘Al-Shabab’. based in Somalia.