Ugandan police say at least 25 people have been killed in a suspected rebel attack on a school near the Congo border.
Police said in a statement Saturday that the Allied Democratic Forces carried out the attack late Friday night on a school in the border town of Mpondwe.
The secondary school is located about 1.2 miles from the Congo border.
“A dormitory was burnt and a food store looted. So far 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Bwera Hospital,” the statement said, adding that eight others are in critical condition.
The statement said Ugandan government troops tracked the attackers into Congolese territory.
It was not immediately clear if all of the victims were students.
The Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, is accused of launching many attacks on civilians in recent years.
The ADF has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a U.S. security ally who has been in power since 1986.
Established in the early 1990s in Uganda, the ADF later was forced to flee into eastern Congo, where many rebel groups are able to operate because Congo’s central government has limited control there.
The ADF has ties with the Islamic State group.
Ugandan authorities for years have vowed to hunt down the ADF’s fighters at home and abroad.
In 2021, Uganda deployed foot soldiers inside Congolese territory, intensifying military operations — backed by the Congolese army —against the ADF.
