At least 10 people are confirmed dead following a Monday night attack by unknown assailants in Kyitehurizi trading centre, Kyabandara parish, Kamwenge sub-county, Kamwenge District, Western Uganda.
According to a statement released by SP Twesige Vicent the PRO, Rwenzori West Region Police, the deceased persons include Banyazaki Margaret, aged 60, another identified only as Tugume, a 25-year-old, and eight others yet to be identified.
Four of the victims were attacked in a bar in Kyabandara Parish, Kamwenge Sub County. The four bodies were burnt in the structure that housed a shop and a hotel.
“After the incident, the assailants proceeded to break into the store of Baguma Richard, 35 years old and looted 300 kgs of beans, a sack of Irish potatoes, 03 trays of eggs, and 50 kgs of maize. They also set ablaze a motorcycle Reg No. UFC 851T.” adds police statement.
Six other victims were found guarding a maize farm and hacked to death by the assailants suspected to be members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militias.
Among the deceased is a female councillor of Kyanadara Parish only identified as Night, according to locals who talked to this reporter. The particulars of the other victims are yet to be established.
Police added that a manhunt led by Joint Security Agencies is currently underway, and further updates will be provided as the investigation progresses.
This comes days after President Museveni said on December 13 that at least 200 members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels affiliated to the Islamic State group were killed in air strikes led by Uganda in September in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Originally Ugandan rebels with a Muslim majority, the ADF have been active since the mid-1990s in the eastern DR Congo, where they have killed thousands of civilians.
In 2019, they pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which now claims some of their actions and presents them as its “Central African Province” affiliate.
“We have been carrying out air attacks on the terrorists in Congo,” President Museveni said on X, formerly Twitter before claiming that around “200 of them were killed” in strikes carried out on September 16.
More strikes have been carried out since then, Mr Museveni added without giving further details.
The rebels are accused of having massacred thousands of civilians in DR Congo in recent years and of carrying out jihadist attacks on Ugandan soil.
Uganda and the DRC launched a joint offensive in 2021 to drive the ADF out of their Congolese strongholds, but have so far failed to put an end to the group’s attacks.
In March, the United States announced that it was offering a reward of up to $5 million for any information that would lead to the group’s leader, a Ugandan in his forties named Musa Baluku.
In October, two tourists, a British man and a South African woman on their honeymoon, as well as their guide, were killed while on safari in Queen Elizabeth National Park in the west of the country, an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
Uganda arrested the leader of the ADF rebel group, Abdul Rashid Kyoto, also known by aliases Njovu and Tembo, accused of carrying out the murders in early November.
In June, 42 people, including 37 pupils, were killed in an attack on Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School in Kasese District, western Uganda also attributed to the ADF.
That was not the first attack on a school in Uganda blamed on the rebel group.
In 1998, 80 students were burnt alive in their dormitories during an ADF attack on the Kichwamba Technical Institute near the DR Congo border.
Early this month, police offered at least Shs40 million for information leading to the arrest of two alleged ADF fugitive militants.
Police on December 4 published the two top ADF rebels accused of waging insurgencies in Uganda and neighbouring DR Congo.
Police spokesperson Fred Enanga said one of the most wanted, Musa Kamusi, is the new commander of a splinter ADF cell formerly led by Njovu.
On December 13, UPDF said they had killed two ADF militants and injured Kamusi in an operation within Kibaale National Park.
The UPDF spokesperson, Brig Gen Felix Kulaigye, confirmed the operation’s success, disclosing that two SMG rifles were recovered from the neutralised rebels.
“Two ADF terrorists died and their Commander Kamusi was injured by UPDF in Kibale forest. The hunt to eliminate the remaining terrorists & their agents within the country continues,” he said.
Kibaale National Park sprawls across the districts of Kabarole, Kamwenge, and Kyenjojo.
