KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandan police stated no less than 25 individuals have been killed in a suspected insurgent assault on a faculty close to the Congo border.

A authorities official stated others had been additionally kidnapped.

In a press release on Saturday, police authorities stated that the Allied Democratic Forces carried out the assault late Friday night time on a faculty within the border city of Mpondwe.

Lhubiriha Secondary School, which is privately owned, is positioned within the Ugandan district of Kasese, about 2 kilometers (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 assertion stated, including that eight others had been in vital situation.

It was not instantly clear if the entire victims had been college students.

The assertion stated Ugandan troops tracked the attackers “into Congo’s Virunga National Park.”

Joe Walusimbi, an official representing Uganda’s president in Kasese, instructed The Associated Press over the cellphone that authorities had been making an attempt to confirm the variety of victims and people kidnapped.

“Some bodies were burnt beyond recognition,” he stated.

Winnie Kiiza, an influential political chief and a former lawmaker from the area, condemned the “cowardly attack” on Twitter. She stated, “attacks on schools are unacceptable and are a grave violation of children’s rights,” including that colleges ought to at all times be “a safe place for every student.”

The Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, is accused of launching many assaults on civilians in recent times, notably on civilian communities, in distant components of japanese Congo.

The ADF has lengthy opposed the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a U.S. safety ally who has been in energy since 1986.

Established within the early Nineties in Uganda, the ADF later was pressured to flee into japanese Congo, the place many insurgent teams are in a position to function due to the nation’s restricted management over the realm.

The group additionally has ties with the Islamic State group.

In March , no less than 19 individuals had been killed in Congo by suspected ADF extremists.

Ugandan authorities for years have vowed to trace down ADF militants “at home and abroad.” In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in Congo in opposition to the group.