Militant attack kills 41 at Ugandan school

MPONDWE, (Uganda): Militants linked to the Islamic State group massacred at least 41 people, mostly students, in western Uganda, in the country’s deadliest such attack in over a decade, officials said Saturday.

The military said it was pursuing the attackers from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), who also abducted six people during a raid on a school late Friday before fleeing back towards the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Officials and witnesses said guns and knives were used in a grisly late-night assault and dormitories set ablaze at Lhubiriha Secondary School in Mpondwe.

Police and army officials blamed the ADF, one of the deadliest militias over the border in DR Congo’s strife-torn east, which the Islamic State group has called its local offshoot.

Sylvester Mapozi, the town council mayor of Mpondwe-Lhubiriha where the attack occurred, said 39 students were killed at the school. Mumbere Edgar Dido, 16, said the attackers arrived at his dormitory carrying machetes and guns and opened fire from outside, sending everyone diving under their beds.