About 14 persons, including children, have been killed after lightning hit a church inside a refugee camp in northern Uganda, officials said Sunday.
The incident occurred on Saturday evening, while about 50 refugees, mostly from the Nuer community of South Sudan, were praying in the church in Palabek refugee camp.
Authorities say the storm which struck the metal roof left 14 dead, including five girls and nine boys aged between 14 and 18.
About 34 more people were injured and treated at a nearby health centre, police said.
“The government is working with UNHCR and other agencies are providing the necessary assistance to the survivors,” Hillary Onek, Uganda’s minister for refugees and disaster preparedness, told AFP
“The government team is already on the ground helping to deliver the bodies to their respective families,” he added.
This is not the first time Uganda has faced several lightning-related deaths. A strike at a primary school killed at least 18 students in 2011, and nine teenagers were killed in an incident in August 2020.
In February 2020, four endangered mountain gorillas were killed by an apparent lightning strike in Mgahinga National Park in southwest Uganda.