By Frank Kamuntu
Minister Of Education and Sports dubbed 1st Lady Janet Kataaha Museveni has this afternoon addressed the media on the deadly ADF attack at Lhubiriha Secondary School in Kasese that left over 40 dead.
Janet said during the attack, over 30 students were killed and most of these were boys who had locked themselves inside a dormitory.
”When these rebels came they found the hostel for boys was locked so they couldn’t enter, they threw a bomb inside and burnt the entire hostel with students inside,” said Janet.
She added that after burning the boys’ hostel, the rebels proceeded to the girls’ hostel which they found open and started slaughtering them using pangas among other tools.
”We’ve been informed that some of the girls were even abducted by these rebels and our security agencies are working hard to rescue them and also stabilize the situation. So we shall give more update when State Minister for Higher Education John Chrysestom Muyingo comes back,” said Janet adding;
”I was supposed to go there myself and asses the situation but then i was reminded that we are still in quarantine so I couldn’t go.”
The raid, which happened around 11:30 p.m., involved about five attackers, the Ugandan military said. Soldiers from a nearby brigade who responded to the attack found the school on fire, “with dead bodies of students lying in the compound,” military spokesman Brig. Felix Kulayigye said in a statement.
That statement cited 47 bodies, with eight other people wounded and being treated at a local hospital. Ugandan troops are “pursuing the perpetrators to rescue the abducted students” who were forced to carry looted food toward Congo’s Virunga National Park, it said.
Ugandan authorities for years have vowed to track down ADF militants even outside Ugandan territory. In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in Congo against the group.