Anxious wait after school hit

BRUTAL: MILITANTS HACKED, SHOT AND BURNT PUPILS

IS-linked rebels massacre at least 41 people, capture and flee with 6 abductees.

Distraught families gathered at a mortuary in western Uganda yesterday for news of loved ones after a militant attack left dozens of pupils dead and others missing.

Officials say at least 41 people, mostly students, were massacred at a secondary school near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) late on Friday by militants linked to the Islamic State (IS) group.

They were hacked, shot and burnt to death in a brutal attack at Lhubiriha Secondary School in Mpondwe that has shocked Uganda and drawn global condemnation.

The army and police have blamed the Allied Democratic Front a militia based in the DRC, whose members fled back to the border with six abductees.

The military said it was pursuing the attackers and would recover those kidnapped.

Many of the victims were burnt beyond recognition when the attackers set a locked dormitory ablaze, frustrating efforts to identify the dead and account for the missing.

At a mortuary in Bwera, a town near the attack, families wailed as the bodies of their loved ones were put into coffins and taken away for burial.

But for many others, there was no news of missing relatives.

Many of those killed in the fire were transferred to the city of Fort Portal for DNA testing. This is the deadliest militant attack in Uganda since 2010 when 76 people were killed in twin bombings in Kampala by the Somalia-based group, Al-Shabaab.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres called it “an appalling act” while the US, a close ally of Uganda, and the African Union also sent their condolences and condemned the bloodshed.

Seventeen male students were burnt in their dormitory while 20 female students were hacked to death, said Uganda’s first lady and education minister, Janet Museveni. A security guard and three members of the public were also killed, officials said.

The army will track down “these evil people and they will pay for what they have done”, said Museveni.

But questions have been raised about how the attackers evaded detection in a border region with a heavily military presence.

An army spokesperson said an investigation would be needed to establish what went wrong. –

Picture: AFP GRIEF-STRICKEN. The relative of a victim of the Lhubiriha Secondary School mourns outside the Bwera General Hospital mortuary in Kasese yesterday. Distraught families gathered at the mortuary for news of their loved ones after a militant attack left dozens of students dead and others missing.