By sheer luck, student Julius Isingoma survived an attack by Islamist rebels on his school in western Uganda.
"I smeared the blood of my dead comrades on my mouth, ears and head, so that the attackers would think I was dead," he said when we met him at the Bvera General Hospital in Kasese District.
About 37 people, XNUMX of them students, were killed in an attack on a secondary school in the town of Mpondwe on Friday evening.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni blamed the United Democratic Forces (ADF) for the attack, adding that they "probably collaborated with other criminals because I hear the school had some problems."
He did not clarify what he meant, but vowed to hunt down extremists in their hideouts across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
ADF has not yet commented.
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These forces were formed in the XNUMXs and took up arms against Museveni, accusing him of persecuting the minority Muslim population.
Their leader reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2016.
But, the Islamic State only acknowledged activity in this area for the first time in April 2019, when it claimed responsibility for an attack on military positions near the border with Uganda.
In that statement, the Islamic State declared the "Central African Province" (Iscap).
It is believed that the six pupils were abducted while the extremists were retreating to the DR Congo.
Julius was among the six survivors of the attack, which lasted several hours.
He did not identify the attackers, but said they were armed men who began the attack around 10 pm local time.
They reached the boys' dormitory, but the students locked the door when they realized they were in danger.
"When they couldn't open the door, they put a bomb in the bedroom, and then they used hammers and axes to break down the door," he said.
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Julius stood behind a number of students who formed a shield at the door and were killed on the spot when the extremists stormed the dormitory.
The cries of students could be heard everywhere as they were mowed down by bullets, butchered with machetes or killed on the spot.
He quickly climbed to the top bunk, removed some of the ceiling boards and jumped inside to hide.
From there, he watched helplessly as the attackers brutally killed his comrades and then set fire to the mattresses and left.
"I was dazed by the smoke and jumped back into the dorm, but I had a loud thump," he says.
The extremists heard the blow and returned.
At that moment, Julius knew he had to survive the attack.
"I laid down next to the bloody bodies of my friends and began to think quickly. Then I smeared a lot of blood on my ears, mouth and head and when the extremists came, they checked my pulse on my arm and left," says Julius.
Another survivor, Godwin Mumbere, was in the same dormitory as Julius.
The XNUMX-year-old recalled that the attackers went to the women's dormitory, dragged the girls out and butchered them to death with machetes.
They then returned to the men's dormitory, broke down the door and began attacking the boys.
The bed under which Godwin was hiding was ransacked, and his companions who were on it fell to the floor and were killed.
"The attackers saw me but thought I was dead," he told the BBC.
But they went out and came back to make sure they were all dead.
"At that moment they shot me in the arm and set fire to the entire dormitory," he says.
Godvin was brought back to reality by the cries of another student who said he was going to die.
He ran out of the dormitory, jumped the school fence and ran to a nearby hardware store across a cocoa plantation.
When he reached the cabin, he hid under the car.
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Claris Bwambare, a senior manager at Bvera General Hospital, told the BBC that they started bringing in the bodies of pupils and residents around 01:00 - some three hours after the attack on the school on Friday night.
He pointed out that of the 20 bodies they received, 18 were students.
Five survivors are currently recovering in hospital.
One of them is a girl in critical condition in the intensive care unit.
The surgeon estimated that she must not move due to the severe head injury that the rebels inflicted on her with a hammer.
Bwambare said that no one came to pick up only one body in the morgue.
On Sunday, the bereaved families buried 21 students, according to the Ugandan newspaper New Vision.
Lying on his hospital bed, Julius expressed his regret at not being able to attend the funerals.
He says that he would like to have been a soldier because then he could fight back and save the lives of his comrades and colleagues.
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