School attack in Uganda: Screaming interrupts gospel songs

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By Ashley Lime and Anne Ocumob, BBC News, The Snake Story

33 minutes ago

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Mary Masika, who lives across from the school, says she often hears the students sing before bed

A woman who lives in front of the school said that students in Uganda were singing gospel songs before a deadly attack by Islamist militants on Friday.

“Then I heard screaming,” Mary Masika told the BBC. The brutal attack in Mbundwe left nearly 40 people dead.

Militants linked to the Islamic State group were blamed for the attack.

The Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF) was created in the 1990s and took up arms against President Yoweri Museveni, claiming persecution of Muslims.

They are largely based in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School, which was attacked on Friday, near the border.

Ms. Masika says she and other residents were horrified by the attack, which lasted about 90 minutes.

Warning: Contains details that some readers may find distressing

“I haven’t been able to eat or sleep since then,” she told the BBC in Swahili.

Students often sing before bedtime – and at first she and her daughter thought the noise that interrupted their songs around 22:00 (20:00 GMT) indicated they were having a little fun.

But it soon became apparent that something terrible was happening at the school, which had about 60 boarding students living in a small compound.

ADF rebels entered the dormitories, set them on fire and used machetes to kill and maim the students.

A family in Mbundwe held funerals on Sunday for the father and son killed in the attack – 47-year-old security guard Elfanas Mbusa and 17-year-old Maserika Elton.

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Horubana Kimadi Ansemus lost a son, a school guard and at least one of his grandchildren – it is not clear if the other was kidnapped

Their other son, 15-year-old Brian Muhindo who was also attending school, is missing. They do not know if he was among the six abducted boys or one of those whose bodies could not be identified because they had severe burns.

Horubana Kemadee Ansmus told the BBC he found it difficult to understand how the attackers managed to infiltrate the school where his son works as a security guard and where his grandchildren study.

“There is a very heavy military presence in the area,” said the 69-year-old.

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The BBC team was given a few minutes to film the scene at the school in Mpondwe

Now there is a lot of security at the school – and the BBC team is given just a few minutes to take some pictures of the burning buildings.

It was a devastating and disturbing scene.

Much dried blood still lay on the ground outside the girls’ dormitory – they had been attacked with machetes and others shot dead as they fled.

The boys’ dormitory was locked – they either refused to open it to the rebels or were locked inside by them. The militants doused the building with fuel and set it on fire.

The stench of death is unmistakable – the beds had been reduced to wire mesh with bits of flesh still stuck to them.

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It is not clear whether the doors to the boys’ dormitory were locked by those inside or by the rebels

Toward the end of the attack, around 23:30, Ms. Masika said, she heard one of the attackers speaking at the gate of her home asking a fellow fighter if “mission accomplished”.

They were speaking in Swahili – the lingua franca of the region – and then they started shouting “Allahu Akbar”, meaning “God is great”.

After these chants, she said, one of them added, “We have succeeded in destabilizing Museveni’s country.”

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Several funerals were held on Sunday for those killed in the attack

In response, President Museveni vowed to send more troops to the Rwenzori Mountains, located along the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, saying, “Their… desperate and cowardly act of terrorism… will not save them.”

The area around Mbundwe seems to be a mix of Christians and Muslims. Some of those who attended the funerals on Sunday wore traditional Islamic dress.

Other funerals for the pupils killed in the attack were held in villages across the region, and most people were left stunned and in pain by the brutality of the attack.

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