Student Julius Isingoma has told the BBC how he miraculously survived a night-time assault by suspected Islamist rebels on his school dormitory in western Uganda.
“I smeared the blood of my dead colleagues in my mouth, ears and on my head so that the attackers would think I was dead,” he said, when we met him at Bwera General Hospital in Kasese district.
About 40 people – 37 of them students – died in the attack on the secondary school in the small town of Mpondwe on Friday night.
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni blamed the attack on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), adding that they were “possibly working with other criminals because I hear that school had some wrangles”. He did not elaborate, but vowed to hunt down the militants in their hide-outs across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The ADF has not yet commented.
It was formed in the 1990s and took up arms against Mr Museveni, alleging persecution of the minority Muslims population.
Its leader reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group in 2016.
But it was not until April 2019 that IS first acknowledged its activity in the area, when it claimed an attack on army positions near the border with Uganda.
This statement marked the announcement of IS’s “Central Africa Province” (Iscap).
Six students are believed to have been abducted as the militants retreated to DR Congo. (BBC)