Kampala, 19 June, 2023 / 9:55 pm (ACI Africa).
Religious leaders in Uganda have condemned “in the strongest terms” the attack on Lubiriha Secondary School in the Western region of the country that resulted in the death of at least 41 people, and half a dozen abductions.
According to a June 17 Associated Press (AP) report, “Thirty-eight students in their dormitories were among the victims” in the June 16 nighttime school attack that has been attributed to suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
“Some students were burned beyond recognition, and others were shot or hacked to death after militants armed with guns and machetes attacked the school in the frontier district of Kasese,” AP has reported about the attack in Western Uganda, a region covered by the country’s Catholic Diocese of Kasese.
The suspected ADF members are said to have escaped into the Virunga National Park of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) alongside six students who, according a Ugandan military statement, were taken to help carry the food that was looted from the school premises.
In a statement circulated Monday, June 19, members of the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU) say they received “with profound sadness the news of the merciless, gruesome, and cruel massacre of innocent students".