KASESE SCHOOL ATTACK: Parliament demands for answers from the defence minister

Parliament has directed the Minister of Defense Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempijja to present a statement on the killings and abductions of students of Lhubirira Secondary School in Kasese District last week.

Suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels attacked the school on Friday, 16 June 2023 and killed 42 people and abducted others. The school is located in Mpondwe at the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Speaker, Anita Annet Among, who had earlier asked the Minister for Education to present the statement changed her position following a procedural matter raised by Kira Municipality MP, Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda.

Ssemujju wondered why a security issue would be addressed by a minister in the education sector. “Can we have a report tomorrow from the Defence Ministry? Let us not gamble but debate from an informed point,” Among directed.

The Speaker said the killings and abduction of students of Lhubirira Secondary School have opened old wounds. “You can imagine you wake up thinking your child is at school but you get the news that the child has been burnt.

This opens afresh the pain of previous tragedies such as the 1998 incident at Kichwamba Technical Institute in Kabarole District where students were burnt,” she said.

Among added that, ‘we also had the abduction of Aboke girls in Oyam District in 1996 and the 1991 incident were students of Sacred Heart School in Gulu District were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels’.

President Yoweri Museveni ordered the increased deployment of the army in the area and to also hunt down the rebels who retreated to the DRC through what the security has described as porous border points.