Uganda town buries victims of school attack

Name: Uganda town buries victims of school attack
Uploaded: 19 Jun 2023, 09:02:11 PM
Duration: 02:37
Channel: TIMESOFINDIA.COM

| Jun 19, 2023, 09:02:11 PM | AP

A bereaved 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 frontier with volatile eastern Congo.One of eight people wounded in Friday night's attack, in which 38 students were killed, died overnight, said the mayor of the town of Mpondwe-Lhubiriha.In addition to the 38 students, the victims include a school guard and three civilians. At least two of them, members of the same family, were buried Sunday.Some students were burned beyond recognition; others were shot or hacked to death after militants armed with guns and machetes attacked Lhubiriha Secondary School, co-ed and privately owned, which is located about 2 kilometers (just over a mile) from the Congo border.Ugandan authorities believe at least six students were abducted, taken as porters back inside Congo.Atkins Godfrey Katusabe, a local MP, said people were "psychologically crippled and emotionally bleeding."The atmosphere in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha was tense but calm on Sunday as Ugandan security forces roamed the streets outside and near the school, which was protected by a police cordon.The attack is blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, which rarely claims responsibility for attacks. It has established ties with the Islamic State group.In a statement on Sunday, his first comment on the incident, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni described the attack as “criminal, desperate, terrorist and futile," vowing to deploy more troops on the Ugandan side of the border.The ADF has been accused of launching many attacks in recent years targeting civilians in remote parts of eastern Congo, including one in March in which 19 people were killed.The ADF has long opposed the rule of Museveni, a U.S. security ally who has held power in this East African country since 1986.The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies.