Parents in Uganda have started burying their children after an extremist hacked, bludgeoned, and burned dozens to death in a school. The group is reportedly linked to ISIS.
The attack left 42 dead, many of whom were students. As a result, security forces in the African country have been increased in the part of the country close to eastern Congo, per Daily Mail.
There were 38 students slain in the attack, along with a school guard and three civilians. One of the eight people who was wounded in the attack passed away, according to Selevest Mapoze, the mayor of the town, Mpondwe-Lhubiriha.
He said: “Most of the relatives have come to take their bodies’ from the morgue.”
The authorities are blaming the horrific massacre on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – an extremist group that has been carrying out violent attacks in eastern Congo, a turbulent area.
While attacks in the Congolese provinces of Ituri and North Kivu have been more common over the past couple years, such attacks carried out in Uganda have been limited, largely due to a group of Ugandan troops in the region, per Associated Press.
The AP reported that when ADF rebels are under attack, they will split up into smaller groups and carry out violent attacks in order to “divert” the attention of those attempting to apprehend them, according to Maj. Gen. Olum. The attack on the school was an attempt to apparently ease battlefront pressure.
Olum said: “A typical ADF signature, because this is pressure. They are under huge pressure, and that’s what they have to do to show the world that they are still there, and to show the world that they can still do havoc.”
The attack on the school reportedly took place at 11:30 pm and involved five attackers. The soldiers who were sent to respond to the attack reported that they found the school on fire, “with dead bodies of students lying in the compound,” per military spokesman Brig. Felix Kulayigye.
Families of those attacked in the incident waited all night outside a Bwera mortuary. There were some who identified their loved ones before their bodies were taken away in a coffin.
Roti Masereka, a farmer, said: “We flocked (to) the hospital and found many bodies - of boys and girls, some cut with pangas (machetes), others hit with hammers on the head.”
