KAMPALA: At least 14 people, including several children, were killed in a Ugandan refugee camp when lightning hit a makeshift church where they were sheltering, local officials said on Sunday.

Around 50 people took shelter in the church in Palabek refugee camp in northern Uganda on Saturday evening when a heavy storm hit the area.

Fourteen people died when lightning hit its metal roof, including five girls and nine boys aged between 14 and 18, said William Komech, resident district commissioner for Lamwo region, said.

“There are several inj­ured who are being admitted to health centres,” he added. The refugees were mostly from the Nuer community of South Sudan.

“The government is working with UNHCR and other agencies are providing the necessary assistance to the survivors,” Hil­a­­ry Onek, Uganda’s minister for refugees and disaster preparedness, said.

“The government team is already on the ground helping to deliver the bodies to their respective families,” he added. Uganda has suffered several lightning-related deaths in recent years.

A lightning 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.

“The victims... had gathered for prayers when the rain started around 5pm and the lightning thunder struck at 5:30pm,” police said.

Police did not identify the nationalities of the victims but the camp and others in the region mostly hosts refugees from South Sudan. Most of those refugees had fled during a bloody civil war that gripped the country shortly after its independence in 2011. The victims were mostly juveniles and included a nine-year-old girl, police said.

Fatal lightning strikes are common in the east African country, especially in schools where structures rarely have lightning conductors.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2024