By Police said yesterday that security forces were in pursuit of suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels after they shot and killed two foreign tourists and a Ugandan in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese District, western Uganda.
“We have registered a cowardly terrorist attack on two foreign tourists and a Ugandan in Queen Elizabeth National Park,” police spokesperson Fred Enanga said.
According to police, the victims’ tour vehicle was burnt to ashes by the assailants.
“Our joint forces responded immediately upon receiving the information and are aggressively pursuing the suspected ADF rebels. We express our deepest condolences to the families of the victims,” SCP Enanga added.
Photos shared widely on different social media platforms Tuesday evening showed bodies of the victims lying in a pool of blood near a burning tour vehicle in which the victims were travelling before the attack.
The three— a British national, a South African citizen and their Ugandan guide— are said to have been attacked at Nyamunuka along Katwe Road in the Western Uganda district of Kasese, according to Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) officials.
“They were travelling under Gorilla and Wildlife Safaris, a local tour company. In response to this incident, UWA has informed the Uganda Police Force and other security agencies who are working diligently to establish the precise sequence of events leading up to this horrific incident and to identify those responsible,” said UWA spokesperson, Mr Bashir Hangi in a Tuesday evening statement.
This is not the first time tourists are being attacked in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
On April 2, 2019, American tourist Kimberly Endicott and her guide Jean-Paul Mirenge were kidnapped by suspected terrorists at QENP. The government paid ransom for their release five days later.
The Tuesday attack comes days after President Museveni said on Sunday that security forces had foiled a bomb attack on churches by ADF rebel group.
The ADF made two bombs, which they “were planning to plant in churches in Kibibi, Butambala”, Museveni wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
But the devices “were reported to police and defused”, he added.
The ADF group has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
Earlier Sunday, Mr Museveni said Ugandan forces had carried out air strikes against ADF positions in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
“It seems quite a number of terrorists were killed,” the president said on X, without elaborating.
The ADF could attempt “to commit some random terrorist acts” in Uganda following the airstrikes, he warned.
In September, police said they had foiled another bomb attack on a Kampala cathedral, arresting a man suspected of trying to activate the explosive device among worshippers.
In June, ADF militia members killed 42 people including 37 students in a high school in western Uganda near the border with DR Congo.
It was one of the deadliest attacks in Uganda since the 2010 double attack in Kampala that killed 76 people in a raid claimed by the Somali-based Islamist group al-Shabaab.
In its latest report in June, a United Nations expert panel on DR Congo confirmed ISIS had “provided financial support to the ADF since at least 2019”.
