Uganda’s Kampala — The local mayor reported on Saturday that the bodies of 41 persons, including 38 students, who were burned, shot, or hacked to death following a suspected rebel attack on a secondary school close to the Congo border have been found by Ugandan authorities.
According to the Ugandan military, the rebels kidnapped at least six persons before crossing the flimsy border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo after the operation on Friday night.Students, one security officer, and two local residents slain outside the school were among the casualties. Selevest Mapoze, the mayor of Mpondwe-Lhubiriha, spoke with The Associated Press.
The raid on Lhubiriha Secondary School in the border town of Mpondwe, according to Ugandan authorities, was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces, an extremist organisation that has been carrying out operations from its headquarters in the unrest-ridden eastern Congo for years. About two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the Congo border, in the Ugandan district of Kasese, is the co-ed, privately-owned school.