'Smeared Blood Of Dead Colleagues In Mouth, Ears, Head': How Student Survived Attack On Uganda School

Of the 40 people that were killed in the attacks, 37 of them were students, at the secondary school in the small town of Mpondwe in Uganda on Friday night.

A Uganda Police crime scene tape is seen at the site of an attack in Mpondwe, Uganda, on June 18, 2023

Source : Getty Images

A student from Uganda’s Mpondwe town recalled how he miraculously survived a night-time attack on his school dormitory by suspected Islamist rebels. Julius Isingoma said he covered himself in the blood of his dead colleagues to hide himself from the perpetrators as 40 people were killed in the attack. "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," Julius told BBC at Bwera General Hospital in Kasese district.

Of the 40 people that were killed in the attacks, 37 of them were students, at the secondary school in the small town of Mpondwe on Friday night, as per the BBC report. 

Julius said the attackers, which he could not identify, were equipped with arms and launched their assault at 10pm local time. As they came to the boys’ dormitory, the students locked it sensing danger.

"When they couldn't open the door they hurled a bomb inside the dormitory and then used hammers and axes to break down the door," he said.

Julius was among the many students who stood guard near the door shielding it and were shot dead when the militants barged into the dormitory. He quickly climbed atop a bunk bed, removed some of the wooden planks of the ceiling, and jumped inside to hide.

As he helplessly watched his colleagues being brutally murdered, he was overwhelmed with the smoke that erupted after militants set fire to the mattress. “I dropped back down into the dormitory with a thud," he said.

The militants came back after hearing the thud and this was the moment when Julius knew he had to come out of the attack alive.

"I lay next to the bloodied bodies of my friends and thought very fast. Then I smeared a lot of blood into my ears, mouth and on my head and when the militants came, they checked my hand for a pulse and left," Julius said.

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". 

Without giving other details, Museveni vowed to hunt down the militants in their hide-outs across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The ADF has however not yet commented on the incident. 

The outfit was formed in the 1990s and took up arms against Mr Museveni, alleging persecution of the minority Muslims population. In 2016, its leader pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. 

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).