Editor TLN
The attack was carried out by a group linked to Islamic State and left more than 40 dead.
June 21 (EUROPA PRESS) –
At least three of the minors kidnapped last week in an attack perpetrated by alleged members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) against a school in the Ugandan town of Kasese have managed to escape their captors and have been located by the authorities.
Ugandan Army spokesman Felix Kulayigye has said that “it is true that three students escaped from the ADF rebels.” “They had crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) because of the great pressure exerted on them by Ugandan soldiers,” he said.
The director of the educational center, Raimon Muhindo, indicated after the attack that at least 16 students had been abducted by those responsible for the attack, which also left 42 dead, including 37 students, according to the Ugandan newspaper ‘Daily Monitor’.
Kulayigye himself said Tuesday in statements to the British BBC television channel that three of the kidnapped — two minors and a woman — had been released in an operation in Congolese territory. “The soldiers ambushed the rebels and killed two of them and took their weapons,” he said.
The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, described the perpetrators of the massacre as “cowards” and promised the Army would continue to pursue the terrorists in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it is participating in joint operations to deal with the threat posed by the group.
The ADF was created in the 1990s and is especially active in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where it has been accused of killing hundreds of civilians. Their goal would be to return to Uganda, where they left in 2003 after several military operations that drastically reduced their capabilities.
The ADF suffered a split in 2019 after Musa Baluku — sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States — swore allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCA), under whose banner it has operated since then. DRC and Uganda signed a defense agreement in December to carry out joint operations in eastern DRC.
