What happened?
On Friday, the 16th of June 2023, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terrorists attacked Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School in Western Uganda, killing at least forty-one people and abducting six others.
What We Know
Five terrorists attacked Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe. Upon entry into the school hostels, the terrorists set fire to the buildings and attacked the occupants, many of whom were the teenage students, with machetes.
According to the Ugandan army, the terrorists also murdered three residents of the area and three school security guards, six students were also kidnapped to transport food that the terrorists had stolen from the school’s supplies.
So far, the Ugandan Ministry of Information has confirmed the deaths of thirty-seven students. DNA tests will still be required to identify some of the victims because they were allegedly severely burned beyond recognition, Military spokesperson Felix Kulayigye said.
The death toll may be higher as the authorities were still putting out the fire as of Saturday morning. Sixty-two people are believed to have been in the school at the time of the attack and at least twenty-five bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Bwera Hospital with eight surviving victims in critical condition. A hot pursuit by the Ugandan Peoples Defence Force and the police is still ongoing.
One of the survivors, a sixteen-year-old student, Mumbere Edgar Dido, said the students hid under their beds for safety when the terrorists started shooting from outside.
“They continued to shoot through the windows, then set fire to our room while we were inside, before going to the girls’ dormitory,” he recalled.
Clay Biromunane, who lost three cousins to the attack, told CNN the local morgue was crowded.
“I knew my relatives were at school, so when I heard about the incident, very early in the morning we rushed to the hospital and we found their bodies there, and the mortuary was very crowded.”
Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School is located in Bwera, a community just 2 km from the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to reports, the terrorists who carried out the attack entered the town two days prior and walked around, with one guy keeping watch over the school area.
“The attackers came and locked the boys’ door,” army commander Major General Dick Olum told reporters.
“The boys really tried to fight back, but they were overpowered. The attackers had lit mattresses. In the girls’ dorm, they found their door open, hence killing them and cutting them.” he added.
Who Are The ADF ?
The Allied Democratic Force was formed in 1995 to rebel against Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan president, and was initially located in western Uganda, it has launched the majority of its assaults against military and civilian targets in the D.R.C. since 2013. A significant faction of the ADF under Musa Baluku swore allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2019.
The North Kivu region of the D.R. Congo is where the ADF primarily conducts its operations. Both the government of Uganda and the United States have classified them as a terrorist organisation.
The Lhubiriha school attack is the deadliest terrorist act Uganda has seen since the seventy four-person Al-Shabab suicide attacks in July 2010.
The Lhubiriha school attack is similar to the Buni Yadi massacre in Northeastern Nigeria in 2014 where the Boko Haram terrorists massacred scores of school children in their dormitories and set it on fire.