Wounds from  Kasese attack still raw, month later

A month on since the attack on Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Secondary School in Kasese District on June 16, wounds are still fresh. 

Forty-four lives—38 of whom were students—were lost in the attack whose gory details continue to shock the conscience of a sleepy community.

The government says investigations into the attack are still ongoing. 

Last month, Mr Godfrey Kabyanga—the junior ICT and National Guidance minister—told this newspaper that three students, one of whom is female, were abducted during the attack. To date, their fate is unknown. 

The hope is that they will not suffer the same fate as Amina Rashid Biira, who was found a week after the attack partially buried in an unmarked grave in the DR Congo. Biira’s remains were handed over to her parents on July 5 after a successful DNA test.

While they got a semblance of closure, other parents whose DNA did not match with the four unidentified bodies in Bwera Hospital continue to have nightmarish experiences. Two rounds of DNA tests have been carried out thus far. 

On June 27, the government handed over 11 corpses to their families in what was a sombre event. There was more sombreness on July 5 as three more bodies were returned. 

Twenty-one of the 38 students who were killed were female. While speaking about the attack during a national address on Thursday, President Museveni stopped short of saying the female students acted in error when they screamed during their final minutes “instead of running.”

The screams, Mr Museveni added, were a desperate—if unwise—attempt to solicit for help.

“Many of them would have survived had they chosen to run,” he added.

The government blames the attack on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist rebel group that has been active since 1996. Mr Museveni revealed on Thursday that the UPDF had killed 12 ADF rebels and recovered 10 guns. 

He also gave a ringing endorsement to Operation Shujaa that has since November 2021 sought to dismantle the ADF’s bases in the eastern DRC.

“With the coming of Félix Tshisekedi [as DRC President], he was more cooperative. He allowed us to handle the ADF and we managed,” Mr Museveni said, adding, “[The ADF] had foolishly gathered in big camps and we gave them proper medicine. They were hit.”

Back in Nsenyi Village in Kisinga Sub-county, Mr John Mubili, whose son survived the June 16 attack on Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Secondary School, still finds himself having to second-guess his choices. 

He wants to check his son—Moses Kato—into a boarding school that is not on the hit list of the ADF rebels as per leaflets that have been circulated in Kasese District in recent times.

Mr Mubili has also gone to great lengths to ensure that his son is counselled to avert any post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I have been engaging professional counsellors and his aunts to help reassure him and emphasise the importance of not allowing the past incident to hinder his future aspirations. I am more determined to invest all that I have in my son’s education,” he told Monitor.

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