Newlyweds celebrating their honeymoon on safari in Africa were murdered alongside their tour guide in what Uganda’s president called a “cowardly act” by ISIS-linked terrorists.
The so-far unidentified honeymooners — a British man and a South African woman — were killed with their Ugandan guide when their vehicle was torched by terrorists in Queen Elizabeth National Park late Tuesday, local officials said.
Ugandan authorities blamed the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, a terror group that has pledged allegiance to ISIS.
“It was 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,” President Yoweri Museveni tweeted.
“Of course, these terrorists will pay with their own wretched lives.”
Photos of the horrifying attack show a green safari truck fully ablaze on a dirt road.
While the ADF began in Uganda, the group has been based in the nearby Democratic Republic of Congo since the late 1990s and pledged allegiance to ISIS four years ago.
The two nations launched a joint operation in December 2021 to try and eliminate the group from eastern Congo. Since then, Uganda has killed more than 560 fighters and destroyed their camps.
Despite this, Museveni on Wednesday acknowledged there have been “gaps” in how the “remnants” of the group have been dealt with.
Museveni noted that “a small group of terrorists running away from our operations in Congo” were responsible for the attack on the tourist vehicle.
Queen Elizabeth National Park, one of Uganda’s most popular conservation sites, is in a remote area of southwestern Uganda near the Congo border.
The ADF has seemingly started to ramp up attacks on Uganda in recent months, ever since a June attack where the group was accused of killing at least 41 people, mostly students, in a raid on a remote Ugandan border community.
Following the attack, Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office advised against all but essential travel to Queen Elizabeth National Park.
With Post wires.