A lightning bolt that struck during a fast-moving storm killed fourteen people and injured 34, several critically, at the Palabek refugee settlement camp in northern Uganda, police have said.

Kituuma Rusoke, a spokesman for the Uganda Police Force, stated that the most severely injured and unresponsive victims were taken to a trauma centre in the remote district of Lamwo, where they are continuing to receive treatment.

He explained that the victims had been attending a church service in a metallic structure when the lightning struck on Saturday evening. The fourteen who died include 13 children and one adult.

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“The victims, yet to be identified, had gathered for prayers when the rain started around 5:00 PM, and the lightning thunder struck at 5:30 PM,” Mr Rusoke said.

He did not reveal the exact ages of the children who died but confirmed that the adult killed was 21 years old, according to BBC.

The Palabek refugee camp is on Uganda’s border with South Sudan and houses around 79,238 refugees, the majority of whom have travelled from the Northeast African country, according to the Lamwo District Council.

Deadly lightning is commonly reported in Uganda during the wet seasons and has occasionally caused fatal incidents. The most recent incident before this was in 2020 when a strike killed ten children in the city of Arua in the northwestern part of the country.

In 2011, Reuters reported that lightning killed 18 children and a teacher while they were in a classroom at a school in Kiryandongo, 210 km (130 miles) north of Kampala. Another 38 children were admitted to the hospital.

The World Meteorological Organization says that Uganda has one of the highest rates of lightning strike deaths in the world, and its capital, Kampala, has more days of lightning per year than any other city in the world.

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