By Frank Kamuntu
Two foreign tourists and a Ugandan national have been killed in an attack by suspected Islamist rebels, police have said.
The attack happened in the Queen Elizabeth National Park – one of Uganda’s most popular conservation areas – according to police spokesperson Fred Enanga.
“We have registered a cowardly terrorist attack on two foreign tourists and a Ugandan in Queen Elizabeth National Park,” Enanga wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“The three were killed, and their safari vehicle burnt,” he added.
Mr Enanga said police were pursuing suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – an armed group aligned with Islamic State (IS).
A spokesperson for the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) Bashir Hangi said the attack took place on the outskirts of the park on Tuesday evening.
Hangi said the authority was working with security agencies “to establish who could have carried out this heinous act”.
He did not give details on the tourists’ nationalities.
This is not the first time tourists are being attacked in the Queen Elizabeth National Park. On April 2, 2019, American tourist Kimberly Endicott and her guide Jean-Paul Mirenge were kidnapped by suspected terrorists at this same park. The government paid ransom for their release five days later.
Queen Elizabeth park is located in a remote area of Uganda, on the eastern bank of Lake Edward and near to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a hub for ADF rebels.
Meanwhile, the attack comes days after President Yoweri Museveni said on Sunday that security forces had foiled a bomb attack on churches by ADF rebel group. The ADF made two bombs, which they “were planning to plant in churches in Kibibi, Butambala”, Museveni wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
But the devices “were reported to police and defused”, he added. The ADF group has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. Earlier Sunday, Museveni said Ugandan forces had carried out air strikes against ADF positions in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
“It seems quite a number of terrorists were killed,” the president said on X, without elaborating.The ADF could attempt “to commit some random terrorist acts” in Uganda following the airstrikes, he warned.
In September, police said they had foiled another bomb attack on a Kampala cathedral, arresting a man suspected of trying to activate the explosive device among worshippers.
In June, ADF militia members killed 42 people including 37 students in a high school in western Uganda near the border with DR Congo. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Uganda since the 2010 double attack in Kampala that killed 76 people in a raid claimed by the Somali-based Islamist group al-Shabaab.
