At least 40 people, mostly students, have been killed in a suspected rebel attack on a school in Uganda, officials said.
Other students have been kidnapped and a dormitory at the school has been set on fire in the attack, which is believed to have been carried out by Ugandan militants linked to the Islamic State group.
The mayor of Mpondwe, the town where the attack took place, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, said 41 bodies, including 38 students, had been recovered so far.
Mayor Selevest Mapoze said that while some of the students had suffered fatal burns in the dormitory fire, others had been shot or hacked with machetes.
A guard and two members of the local community were also shot dead outside the school, he said.
According to the Ugandan police, the attack was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which for years have been launching attacks from their bases in the DRC, targeting civilians.
The group has long opposed the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a US security ally who has been in power since 1986.
The group was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims, who argued that they had been marginalized by the policies of Mr. Museveni.
At the time, the rebels carried out deadly attacks on Ugandan towns and the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in a town that was not the scene of the latest attack.
A Ugandan military assault forced the ADF into eastern DRC, where many rebel groups can operate because the central government has limited control there.
The group has since established ties with IS.
In March, at least 19 people were killed in the DRC by suspected ADF extremists.
Ugandan authorities have long been committed to tracking down ADF militants even outside Ugandan territory.
In 2021, Uganda launched joint air and artillery strikes in the DRC against the group.
