Twenty suspects held by Ugandan police are believed to have been involved in the massacre that left 42 dead last Friday. Six others were abducted in the incident, believed to be the worst attack in Uganda since 2010.
Among the suspects are the school’s head teacher, its director, and ‘suspected ADF collaborators’ according to police spokesperson Fred Enanga, referring to the Islamist group Allied Democratic Forces based in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The ADF, classified as a terrorist group by the United States Bureau of Counterterrorism for its ties with the Islamic State, is believed to have retreated back to the DRC border with the six kidnapped individuals.
The victims of the massacre were hacked with machetes, shot and burned in a late Friday night attack on Lhubiriha Secondary School in Mpondwe, which is located less than two kilometres from the DRC. Another half dozen people who were injured in the attack remain in hospital and 15 more are reported missing.
Addressing grieving community members, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni vowed to hunt the perpetrators ‘into extinction’.
[Image: David Peterson from Pixabay]