Kampala, June 17 (BNA): Ugandan authorities have recovered the bodies of 41 people, including 38 students, who were burned, shot or hacked to death after suspected rebels attacked a secondary school near the border with Congo, the local mayor said Saturday.
The Associated Press reports that the rebels, who fled across the porous border into Congo after the raid Friday night, have kidnapped at least six people.
Mpondwe-Loberiha Mayor Sylveste Mabuse told The Associated Press that the victims included students, a guard and two community members who were killed outside the school.
Mabuse said some students suffered fatal burns when the insurgents set fire to a dormitory while others were shot or hacked with machetes.
The Ugandan military said the raid, which took place around 11:30 p.m., included about five attackers. Soldiers from a nearby brigade who responded to the attack found the school on fire, “with the bodies of the students lying in the compound,” army spokesman Brig. Felix Colaigi said in a statement.
The statement referred to 47 dead bodies and eight other people receiving treatment at a local hospital. It added that Ugandan forces were “pursuing the perpetrators to rescue the kidnapped students” who were forced to carry looted food towards Virunga National Park in Congo.
The school, co-ed and privately owned, is located in Uganda’s Kasese district, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Congo border.
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