Three people were killed in an attack on Tuesday in a national park. Uganda says it is seeking to hunt down and kill the perpetrators.
According to Ugandan military spokesman Felix Kulayigye, the army, police, and wildlife authority “have deployed all resources, both technical and physical, to capture these terrorists and hold them accountable”.President Yoweri Museveni said in a statement, “The two tourists killed, along with their tour guide, in an attack near a Ugandan national park were a newlywed couple, the country’s president said in a statement Wednesday.”
The trio were targeted on Tuesday by gunmen as they were on safari in Queen Elizabeth National Park in southwestern Uganda and their vehicle set on fire, police and park officials said.
The honeymooners — a South African woman and a British man — died when unknown assailants set ablaze their tour vehicle along a road by Queen Elizabeth National Park. Their local guide was also killed.
President Yoweri Museveni described the attack as a “cowardly act on the part of the terrorists attacking innocent civilians and tragic for the couple who were newlyweds and visiting Uganda on their honeymoon.” He said the terrorists “will pay with their own wretched lives.”
Britain’s Foreign Office said it “advises against all but essential travel” to the park, a tourist magnet where lions are known for their unusual ability to climb trees.
Ugandan police blamed the attack on the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, a shadowy rebel outfit with ties to the Islamic State group. Museveni asserted the ADF’s responsibility, urging security agencies to ensure the group “is wiped out.”
Uganda security agencies are currently hunting down the ADF deep inside Congo. Ugandan authorities say hundreds of ADF rebels have been killed in airstrikes in recent months.
According to Museveni, ”a small group of terrorists running away from our operations in Congo” attacked the tourist vehicle.
The ADF is historically a Ugandan rebel coalition whose biggest group comprised Muslims opposed to Museveni.
Established in eastern DRC in 1995, the group became the deadliest of scores of outlawed forces in the deeply troubled region.Since 2019. The rebel group has been affiliated with Islamic State (IS).
