Parents give DNA to help identify massacre victims in Uganda

Kampala — Parents of students missing after an attack on a school in western Uganda are flocking to the local police station to submit DNA samples that could identify their children among the 42 bodies recovered.

One of Uganda’s biggest massacres in recent decades occurred on Friday night at Lhubirira Secondary School. Assailants set alight a dormitory full of boys, then attacked a dormitory full of girls, hacking victims to death with machetes and knives.

The attackers also abducted six pupils. Authorities say the attackers are  fighters of an Islamic State-affiliated group based in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Regional police commander Tai Ramadhan said many of the bodies are charred beyond recognition so investigators use DNA samples from relatives to identify them.

Simon Kule, who had come to Bwera Police Station to give a DNA sample, was still looking for his son, Philmon Mumbere.

“So they should help us to know — either these people are still there or they are in the mortuary so that we should prepare in time.”

Solomon Mulekya was looking for his daughter, Trephine Kaghuo.

“We are not happy, because we have lost our children,” he said. “I’m there in suspense, whether the rebels they have taken her or we don’t know they killed her along the way.”

Authorities said on Monday that 20 suspected “collaborators” of the attackers, including the school’s head teacher, had been detained for questioning.

Reuters