By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A joint team of soldiers and policemen have launched a manhunt on Islamist militants suspected to be members of Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group, a group that has pledged alliance with Islamic State (IS) after an attack in a school on Friday night.
About 25 persons were killed, while several others were abducted in the attack in western Uganda near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, police announced on Saturday.
The assailants during the attack on Lhubirira Secondary School in the western border town of Mpondwe also set ablaze a dormitory and looted foodstuffs, the police said.
“Our forces are pursuing the enemy to rescue those abducted and destroy this group,” defence spokesperson Felix Kulayigye said on Twitter.
The attackers fled towards Virunga National Park in Congo, police added but did not say how many of the dead were schoolchildren.
“So far 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Bwera Hospital. Also recovered are eight victims, who remain in critical condition at Bwera Hospital,” police said on Twitter.
The ADF rebels launched their insurgency against President Yoweri Museveni in the 1990s from an initial base in the Rwenzori Mountains.
The group was largely defeated by the Ugandan military but remnants fled across the border into the vast jungles of eastern Congo from where they have since maintained their insurgency – perpetrating attacks on civilian and military targets in both Congo and Uganda.
