Ugandan police arrested 20 people on Monday for their possible role in the bloody attack on a high school last week. The authorities announced this during a press conference, international news agencies report. These are rebels from Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group closely associated with IS.
Friday night’s attack on Lhubiriha High School in Mpondwe in western Uganda, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, killed 42, including many young schoolchildren. The victims, the youngest was 12 years old, were attacked with machetes, shot or burned alive, according to a new report released by local police on Monday. Among other things, the school principal was arrested for his possible involvement in the attack on the school.
Several students were kidnapped. Because seventeen schoolchildren were burnt beyond recognition after the perpetrators set fire to a dormitory, the Ugandan authorities are faced with a difficult task. Because it is difficult to identify the victims, it is difficult to find out exactly which children were abducted. Until Monday, families are waiting for the results of DNA tests that should clarify this.
Bloody reputation
Almost immediately after Friday’s events, the Ugandan military blamed the ADF. The rebels therefore have a bloody reputation. The group is said to have killed thousands of civilians since the 1990s, operating from neighboring Congo, whose border is less than two kilometers from the school. ADF has been receiving financial support from IS since 2019, the French news agency AFP writes based on a UN report. IS has since claimed a large share of ADF’s attacks and collectively presents it as its Central African branch.
Friday’s attack is the deadliest in Uganda since a double bomb attack in the capital Kampala in 2010 that killed 76 people. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni described the massacre as a “desperate, cowardly” act on Sunday and promised to punish the perpetrators.