At a secondary school in Uganda, the bodies of 41 persons, including 38 kids, were discovered.
Authorities said that after suspected rebels attacked on Friday night, the victims were burned, shot, or hacked to death.
The Lhubiriha Secondary School in the bordering town of Mpondwe saw the deaths of students, faculty, and two locals.
The insurgents kidnapped at least six persons before escaping across the neighbouring border into Congo.
Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Mayor Selevest Mapoze told The Associated Press that some of the students suffered fatal burns when a dormitory was set on fire.
Others were shot or hacked with machetes.
The raid, which happened around 11:30 p.m., involved about five attackers, the Ugandan military said.
Soldiers from a nearby brigade who responded to the attack found the school on fire, ‘with dead bodies of students lying in the compound,’ military spokesman Brig. Felix Kulayigye said in a statement.
The statement cited 47 bodies, with eight other people wounded and being treated at a local hospital.
Ugandan troops are ‘pursuing the perpetrators to rescue the abducted students’ who were forced to carry looted food toward Congo’s Virunga National Park, it added.
It is suspected that the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an extremist group that has long since been launching attacks from its bases in eastern Congo, are behind the raid.
The school, co-ed and privately owned, is located in the Ugandan district of Kasese, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Congo border.
Who are the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF?)
The ADF has been accused of launching many attacks in recent years targeting civilians in remote parts of eastern Congo.
The shadowy group rarely claims responsibility for attacks.
The ADF has long opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a U.S. security ally who has held power in this East African country since 1986.
The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies.
At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in a town not from the scene of the latest attack.
A Ugandan military assault later forced the ADF into eastern Congo, where many rebel groups are able to operate because the central government has limited control there.
The group has since established ties with the Islamic State group.
Joe Walusimbi, an official representing Uganda’s president in Kasese, told the AP agency over the phone that some of the victims ‘were burnt beyond recognition.’
Winnie Kiiza, an influential political leader and a former lawmaker from the region, condemned the ‘cowardly attack’ on Twitter.
She said ‘attacks on schools are unacceptable and are a grave violation of children’s rights,’ adding that schools should always be a safe place for every student.’
In March , at least 19 people were killed in Congo by suspected ADF extremists.
Ugandan authorities for years have vowed to track down ADF militants even outside Ugandan territory. In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in Congo against the group.