According to the police, 25 people were killed in an attack on a school in western Uganda. “So far, 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and taken to the hospital,” said a police spokesman on Saturday after the nighttime incident in the village of Bwera near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Eight people are in a life-threatening condition.

25 students killed in rebel attack in Uganda

The rebel group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) attacked a school near Bwera, where “a dormitory was burned and a food warehouse was looted,” the police spokesman said.

Army and police units pursued the attackers towards Virunga National Park in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the ADF is based. Originally from Uganda, the rebel group, allied with the jihadist militia Islamic State, has been accused of killing thousands of civilians since the 1990s.