(Mpondwe) Grieving families prepare to bury their dead in western Uganda on Sunday, others are still desperately searching for loved ones missing after the jihadist raid on a secondary school left dozens horribly dead ‘students.
At least 41 people were killed in the night from Friday to Saturday, mostly students, in this attack, the worst of its type perpetrated in the country for years.
The victims were attacked with machetes, shot or burned alive during this raid.
Pope Francis prayed on Sunday “for the young students who were victims” of this “brutal attack” which shocked Uganda and drew strong international condemnation
The assault targeted Lhubiriha Secondary School in Mpondwe, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
PHOTO STUART TIBAWESWA, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Members of the Ugandan security forces inspect the scene of the attack.
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.
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 the DRC.
Seventeen victims were burned beyond recognition when assailants set fire to a locked dormitory in the school, complicating victim identification and a missing person count.
PHOTO HAJARAH NALWADDA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A dormitory of Lhubiriha Secondary School
“Great pain”
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 told AFP.
Other families desperate for news waited 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.
PHOTO HAJARAH NALWADDA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The families of the victims have identified bodies in a hospital in Bwera.
Others fidgeted anxiously, still without any news of their loved ones.
The government said on Sunday it would help with funeral arrangements, pledging to support the injured.
Seventeen students were burned to death in their dormitory, which was completely destroyed by fire, and 20 others 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 students tried to escape but were all killed with machetes.
PHOTO HAJARAH NALWADDA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Families of victims were able to recover the identified bodies.
A security guard and three other people were also killed, officials said.
“They will pay”
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 evil people and they will pay for what they did”, Ms.me Museveni 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 the DRC, where the ADF has been active and has been accused of killing thousands of civilians since the 1990s.
Major General Dick Olum told AFP 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 the DRC 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.
In June 1998, 80 students were burned to death in their dormitories in an ADF attack on the Kichwamba Technical Institute near the DRC border.
More than 100 students had been abducted.
Friday’s attack on Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe is the deadliest in Uganda since the twin bombings in Kampala in 2010 that killed 76 people in a raid claimed by the Islamist group Shebab, based in Somalia.