June 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has condemned the attack by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) against a school in Uganda that has left at least 37 dead and eight injured.
“Those responsible for this heinous act must be brought to justice,” Guterres said in a statement in which he also expressed his “deepest condolences” to the families of the victims, the Government, and the people of Uganda.
In addition, he has called for the “immediate” release of the hostages, and has reiterated the importance of regional agreements to deal with insecurity in the region and establish a “lasting peace.”
The Ugandan Army has confirmed at least 37 dead, eight wounded and six missing in an attack that occurred at around 11:30 p.m. on Friday at the Mpondwe Lhubiriha private secondary school in this town on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the main area of performance of this militia, one of the most violent on the continent, which nevertheless had its origins on Ugandan soil.
Although it has not specified how many of the deceased are students, an initial balance by the Police estimated the number of dead schoolchildren at 25, along with another 20 who were initially believed to have been kidnapped, although the Army has had to regret the subsequent discovery of some of their bodies without life. Security forces, however, have found three unharmed survivors of the attack.
The ADF, created in the 1990s and accused of the massacres of thousands of civilians, was subject to a split in 2019 after its leader swore allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCA), under whose banner it operates. since then. The United Nations attributes more than 1,200 murders of civilians to them in 2021 alone.
