The UPDF has rescued three of the six students who were kidnapped by rebels of Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) after they attacked a school in Kasese district last Friday killing 42 people. 37 killed were students.
The rebels then abducted unconfirmed number of students whom they used to carry food after breaking into the school store.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday army publicist Brig Felix Kulayigye said that 6 students were kidnapped and three have so far been rescued.
A woman with two children who had been kidnapped outside the school was also rescued, together with her children, while two militants were killed and two guns captured, Kulayigye said.
ADF which is linked to Islamic State, attacked Lhubirira Secondary School in Mpondwe on Uganda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The militiamen entered a boys’ dormitory, shot at the children and set the building on fire, incinerating nearly everyone in it. They then entered a girls’ dormitory and hacked them with pangas.
Most of the bodies recovered from the boys’ dormitory were burnt beyond recognition and authorities are using DNA tests to identify them.
ADF, formerly a Ugandan rebel group, operates in the jungles of eastern Congo and has over the past two decades been blamed for killings of civilians there.
The group has also sometimes carried out attacks in Uganda including bombings at a police station and near the parliament building in the Ugandan capital in 2021.
Additional reporting by Reuters
