Kampala: Two foreign tourists and a Ugandan guide were killed Tuesday evening after their safari vehicle was attacked in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda, police said.
“We have registered a cowardly terrorist attack on two foreign tourists and a Ugandan in Queen Elizabeth National Park. The three were killed, and their safari vehicle burnt,” the Uganda Police Force said in a statement.
The police blamed the attack on Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels from the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“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,” the statement added.
Bashir Hangi, the communications manager of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, which manages the country’s national parks, told Xinhua by telephone that they had not been able to identify the victims because their documents were burnt.
Last Friday, ADF rebels burned a civilian’s truck trailer and killed at least one occupant in a road ambush in Kasese, about two km from the border with the DRC.
In June, ADF rebels attacked a school in Kasese killing more than 40 people.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday warned of possible retaliatory attacks by ADF rebels following military air strikes on their camps in eastern DRC.
Ugandan troops, together with their DRC counterparts, have been jointly fighting the rebel group since November 2022.
