AT least 25 people have been killed at a school in western Uganda by rebels linked to the Islamic State group.
A further eight people remain in a critical condition after the attack on Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe.
Police say the attack on Friday was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – an Ugandan group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Soldiers are pursuing the group who fled towards Virunga National park in the DRC, police added.
“So far 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Bwera Hospital”, national police spokesperson Fred Enaga said in a statement on Saturday.
A dormitory at the school was burnt and a food store was looted during Friday night’s attack, he added.
A number of students were still unaccounted for, AFP news agency is reporting.
The attack on the school, located less than two kilometres (1.25 miles) from Uganda’s border with the DRC, is the first such attack on a Ugandan school for many years.
In June 1998, 80 students were burnt to death in their dormitories in an ADF attack on Kichwamba Technical Institute near the border of DRC. More than 100 students were abducted.
The ADF was created in eastern Uganda in the 1990s and took up arms against long-serving President, Yoweri Museveni, alleging government persecution of Muslims.
After its defeat by the Ugandan army in 2001, it relocated to North Kivu province in the DRC.
ADF rebels have been operating from inside the DRC for the past two decades.
