Islamic extremists slaughtered dozens of Christian schoolchildren at a boarding school in Uganda on Friday, including 20 girls who were hacked to death with machetes, the Barnabas Fund reported Tuesday.
A group of militants from an Islamic terror group called Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) stormed the Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School in western Uganda at around 11:30 p.m.
Carrying guns and machetes, the jihadists first raided the boys’ dormitory and massacred 18 students, setting fire to the building and burning many alive. In total, the assailants murdered forty-two people, including 38 students, a school guard, and three local residents.
This photo taken on June 18, 2023 shows a tape cordoning off the burnt students’ dormitory inside the Lhubiriha Secondary School, in Mpondwe, Uganda. (Hajarah Nalwadda/Xinhua via Getty Images)
They also kidnapped six students, nearly all girls, before making their escape into the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
As they left the school, the jihadists were heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest).
The jihadist ADF has been allied to the Islamic State since 2019. ADF was born in Uganda but now operates primarily in DRC, where it has slaughtered hundreds of Christians.
Friday’s massacre was reported on by NPR, CNBC, the BBC, and CBS News, but none of them noted the fact that the slain schoolchildren were Christians who ended each school day singing hymns of praise.
According to the Barnabas Fund, Friday’s mass murder of Christian schoolchildren was just the latest in a long line of anti-Christian attacks regularly taking place in much of sub-Saharan Africa.
In Nigeria, for instance, Islamist Fulani militants slaughtered some 700 Christians during May 2023 as a “farewell” gift to outgoing Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari.
Emeka Umeagbalasi, a Catholic human rights activist and chairman of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, noted that at least “1,100 defenseless Christians were hacked to death by Nigerian Government backed Islamic Jihadists in the past 60 days or between 12th April and 12th June 2023,” which translates to a daily average of 17 Christian deaths by murder.
In north-eastern Mozambique as well, jihadists have killed thousands of Christians since 2017. In 2022, Islamic State Mozambique (ISM) said they were building their Islamic province “on heaps of Christian corpses and rivers of their blood.”
Uganda: Mourners gather for the funeral of Florence Masika and Zakayo Masereka during their burial rituals in Mpondwe on June 18, 2023. At least 41 people, mostly students, were massacred on Friday in the worst attack of its kind in Uganda since 2010. (STUART TIBAWESWA/AFP via Getty Images)