According to the government, at least 42 students were killed in an attack on a school in Uganda on Saturday night. Eight other children were seriously injured in the border town of Mpondwe in the south-west of the country. The police blamed rebels from the Islamist militia ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a regional government official told the German Press Agency dpa, 15 children were also kidnapped.
For years there have been repeated bloody attacks by the ADF and other Congolese militias in the border areas between the two East African countries. The ADF is said to have ties to the Central African offshoot of the Islamist terrorist militia Islamic State. The group’s worst attack happened in 1998, when terrorists killed 80 students in a raid on a university in the border region.
According to their own statements, the group fights for the rights of Muslims in Uganda, who are pushed to the fringes of society by the government. The aim of the group is to overthrow the government. The victims of the attacks, however, are mostly civilians.
