At least ten people were killed and burned in a Tuesday attack on a village in southwestern Uganda attributed by the authorities to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels, affiliated with the Islamic State group.
“According to the first elements of the investigation, ten assailants armed with machine guns attacked and burned ten people”, in the village of Kitehuriza in the Kamwenge district, said regional police spokesman Vincent Twesige, according to whom the assailants were members of the ADF who had crossed the border from neighboring DRC.
Originally Ugandan rebels with a Muslim majority, the ADF have been active since the mid-1990s in eastern DRC, where they have killed thousands of civilians. In 2019, they pledged allegiance to the EI, which now claims some of their actions and presents them as its “Central African province”.
The police spokesman said the suspected rebels had looted a shop, taking sacks of beans, corn, eggs and potatoes with them as they fled. The attack took place at around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, and the Ugandan army was dispatched to the scene.
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 early March, the United States announced that it was offering a reward of up to $5 million for any information leading to the ADF’s leader, a Ugandan in his forties named Musa Baluku.
On Wednesday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni stated that around 200 members of the ADF had been killed in Ugandan-led air strikes in the DRC on September 16, without giving any further details.