ISIS jihadis killed at least 39 children and two adults in a massacre at a school in Uganda.
Most of the students were burnt alive in their beds or hacked to death with machetes during the horrifying raid on Friday night.
A total of 41 people died and eight were critically wounded in the massacre at Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe, in west Uganda.
Authorities blamed the attack on the Allied Democratic Forces, an ISIS offshoot based in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Five jihadis are said to have stormed inside shooting guns and torched the student dormitories at around 11.30pm.
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Sylvester Mapozi, the mayor of Mpondwe-Lhubiriha, confirmed 39 students were dead.
More than 20 of them were reportedly hacked with machetes and 17 burned to death.
Mumbere Edgar Dido, a 16-year-old survivor, told AFP the attackers opened fire on the dormitory before they entered.
Mumbere said: "They continued to shoot through the windows, then set fire to our room while we were inside, before going to the girls' dormitory."
The terrorists then threw a bomb into the dormitory following the machete frenzy, it was reported.
Some of the bodies are said to have been badly burnt and DNA tests will need to be carried out to identify them.
Mpondwe is about 260 miles east of the capital, Kampala, and borders the DRC.
Lhubiriha secondary school is the local educational institution and has about 60 students.
Chris Baryomunsi, Uganda's information minister, told the BBC six students were also abducted to carry food that the jihadis stole from the school's stores as they returned across the border.
Ugandan soldiers are reportedly pursuing the ADF insurgents towards the DRC's Virunga national park.
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Felix Kulayigye, a defence spokesman, said on Twitter: "Our forces are pursuing the enemy to rescue those abducted and destroy this group."
The Ugandan army has also deployed helicopters to help capture the rebel thugs.
The bloodied raid comes after Uganda and the DRC reportedly held joint military operations to prevent attacks by the ADF.
But local residents have since criticised the authorities for not being prepared for the attack, after it was claimed they were aware the terrorists were close.
A Mpondwe resident told local media: "If they are telling us the borders are secure and security is tight, I want the security to tell us where they were when these killers came to kill our people."
The deadly mass-assault is the first attack on a Ugandan school in 25 years.
In 1998, 80 students were burnt to death in their dormitories in an ADF attack on Kichwamba Technical Institute near the border of DRC.
More than 100 students were also abducted.
Richard Moncrieff, a regional expert at International Crisis Group, claimed the attack was likely a way for the terrorists to impose authority.
He said: "These are terrorist groups who want to make an impact through violence.
"They want to show that they are there, show that they are active to their colleagues and allies in ISIS in other parts of the world."
The extremist ADF group was formed in the 1990s and has its roots in eastern Uganda.
However, they were quashed by the Ugandan army in 2001 and fled to the North Kivu province in the DRC.
They have operated out of that region for the last two decades and pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2016.
ISIS has called the group its local offshoot.
The ADF was blamed for a series of attacks in 2021, including a suicide bombing in Kampala.
