Ugandan authorities today found the bodies of 41 people killed, including 38 students, after rebels attacked a high school near the border with Congo.
In the previous balance, there were 25 victims.
Among the victims were students, a security guard and two local residents who were killed in front of the school, Mpondwe-Lubiriha mayor Selevest Mapoze told The Associated Press.
After the attack, the rebels kidnapped an unknown number of people and fled across the porous border into the Congo.
Mapoze said that while some students suffered fatal burns after the rebels set fire to the boarding school, others were wounded with firearms or killed with machetes.
Police said rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), who have been attacking from bases in volatile eastern Congo for years, attacked a high school in the border town of Mpondwe.
The school, which is privately owned, is located in Uganda's Kasese district, two kilometers from the Congolese border.
"A dormitory was set on fire and a food store was looted. So far, 25 bodies have been pulled out of the school and transferred to the Bvera hospital," the police said in a statement, adding that another eight are in critical condition.
Police said Ugandan forces tracked the attackers to Congo's Virunga National Park. The army confirmed that Ugandan soldiers inside Congo were "chasing the enemy to rescue those who have been abducted".
An unnamed local official said some of the victims were completely burned.
The armed group ADF, formed in the early 1990s and close to the jihadists of the Islamic State, has been accused of killing several thousand civilians. She claims that she is fighting on behalf of the rights of Muslims against the government of Ugandan President Josephi Museveni, who has been in power since 1986 with the support of the US.
In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in Congo against the group.
The deadly episode follows last week's attack by suspected ADF fighters in a DRC village near the Ugandan border. Over 100 villagers fled to Uganda but have since returned.
The attack on the school, located less than two kilometers (1,25 miles) from the DRC border, is the first such attack on a school in Uganda in 25 years.
In June 1998, 80 students burned to death in their homes in an ADF attack on Kichvamba Technical Institute near the DRC border. More than 100 students were kidnapped.
The ADF was created in eastern Uganda in the 1990s and has taken up arms against longtime President Yoweri Museveni, alleging that the government is persecuting Muslims.
After its defeat by the Ugandan army in 2001, it moved to North Kivu province in the DRC.
The main founder of the group, Jamil Makulu, was arrested in Tanzania in 2015 and is being held in a Ugandan prison.
ADF rebels have been operating from inside the DRC for the past two decades.
In 2021, suicide bombings in the Ugandan capital Kampala and other parts of the country were blamed on the ADF.
Bonus video:
